To Soar Like a Hawke
by The Real Muse
Summary: The Airwolf team needs help penetrating the most sophisticated defense system ever created. Their only hope: a teammate who died months ago... or did he?
1. Default Chapter

Author's Longer than Normal but Lovingly Crafted Forward  
  
Capable of attaining an altitude of 83,000 feet and a speed of Mach 2, the state-of-the-art helicopter code named AIRWOLF was the creme-de-la-creme of the aviation world. Carrying fourteen offensive and defensive options ranging from radar jamming to the most powerful and deadly missiles in the United States arsenal, Airwolf was slated to become the first of a series of airborne assault vehicles which would give the United States tactical superiority over any nation on the planet.  
  
On the very day of her final test, her mentally unstable creator, Charles Moffett, stole the prototype gunship and flew her to Libya, where he intended to sell her to Mohammar Quadafy for a cool 5-million dollars. In desperation, the Government agency known euphemistically as 'the Firm' contacted Airwolf's former test pilot, a bitter young recluse by the name of Stringfellow Hawke. Hawke agreed to retrieve Airwolf in return for the Government's assistance in locating his brother, Saint John Hawke, who'd been a Prisoner of War in Southeast Asia since before the close of the Viet Nam War. With the assistance of Hawke's friend and foster father, Dominic Santini, the mission was accomplished; distrustful of the bureaucracy, however, Hawke refused to turn over control of the powerful gunship until his brother was located. The Firm, over a barrelhead, continued its search, while Stringfellow Hawke retained possession of Airwolf, flying missions for the Government upon the request of their liaison, the mysterious Archangel.  
  
One and one-half years later this arrangement came to an untidy end. An ex- SAS mercenary, Colonel Ray Buchard, had unearthed Saint John Hawke and brought him to his camp inside Burma. The plan was to use the older Hawke brother as a bargaining chip against Stringfellow in the powerplay for possession of Airwolf. In an additional assault, a bomb was placed in one of Dominic Santini's helicopters; both he and Stringfellow were caught in the blast, Santini seemingly killed and Hawke badly injured. Archangel's replacement, Jason Locke, called upon Air Force Major Mike Rivers to locate Airwolf, only to find that Santini's niece, Jo, has already found the gunship and was preparing to use it to rescue Saint John. This too is accomplished, and the team continues its work under secret Government auspices, flying missions under the Firm's control.  
  
In January 1984, CBS premiered "Airwolf," produced by the inimitable Donald Bellisario; it starred Jan Michael Vincent as Stringfellow Hawke, Ernest Borgnine as Dominic Santini, and Alex Cord as Archangel. Jean Bruce Scott joined the cast in the second season as pilot Caitlin O'Shaunnessy. After the third season, there were major revisions in both storyline and cast. Barry Van Dyke took the role of Saint John Hawke, Anthony Sherwood as Jason Locke, Michele Scarabelli as Jo Santini, and Geraint Wyn Davies (of Forever Knight fame) became Major Mike Rivers. The series lasted one additional season on the USA network in this format before cancellation.  
  
It long annoyed me that USA Network could make such drastic changes in a series I enjoyed without providing the viewers with the courtesy of explaining those changes, or even making an effort at continuity. I took it upon myself to do so in a series of three novels. This first story, "To Soar Like A Hawke," reintegrates the original series with the new one.  
  
Enjoy!  
  
CindyR April, 1995 


	2. Chapter 1

To Soar Like a Hawke  
  
By: CindyR  
The sun blazed, rays perfectly perpendicular to the baked tarmac of the airport, its scorching heat at odd contrast to the fresh breeze that wafted down from the California mountains not many miles distant. Saint John Hawke, a six-foot, one and a half inch man not yet forty, slouched a little lower on his bench, leaning his back against the metal building that comprised the main workshop of Santini Air. He stretched his legs out straight before him, turning his face up to the sun. It had been only two months before that green jungles had hidden the sky from his view, the sight of lush fronds alternating with stinking underground dungeons and rickety shanties. Oh, he'd been often dragged out to work in the rice paddies; his captors had believed in utilizing their human tools to their fullest ... until they dropped. But even then pleasure of the outdoors had been denied him, pillaged by the whips and beatings of those who held the chain.  
  
He sighed and shut his eyes, letting the fuel pump he'd been servicing drop into his lap, a blissful look easing the lines of his normally stern face. Across the field an engine roared preparatory to take-off; from the roof a dove cooed its pleasure, machines in abundance growled from all across the busy airport. Hawke reacted visibly to none of them though if there was a hint of a smile on his lips, there was no one around to remark upon it.  
  
He'd dozed for some while before one of the sounds penetrated the cacophony of his surroundings, one nearer than the rest. He opened one blue-gray eye, following the progress of a car as it tooled steadily up the long driveway; it disdained the glassed in and mostly unused reception area out front, turning instead toward the rear hanger entrance by which he sat. It was a Cadillac, this year's model, its spotless white body throwing up a glare almost painful to look upon. Hawke watched it until it had come to a stop in front of him, then switched his attention to the driver, who was even more worthy of scrutiny. She opened the car door and stepped out, showing a bare minimum of slender leg in the process. Light brown skin was highlighted by the pert hat, and the elegant white suit she wore did nothing to hide her figure. She glanced sharply at the slouching man and approached, low heeled pumps carrying her safely across the stony ground between tarmac and entrance. "Excuse me. Are you Mr. Saint John Hawke?"  
  
Hawke straightened then came to his feet, towering over her by less than five inches. Automatically he ran his left hand through his short, bronze hair, fingercombing it until it lay straight back. This woman had that affect on a man. "That's me," he answered easily, his voice a pleasant if slightly nasal tenor. "What can I do for you?"  
  
The woman extended one gloved hand, an emotion that might have been called relief crossing her face. "You may call me Marella."  
  
Hawke made to accept the hand, then stopped before the greasy pump would have soiled the pristine cotton. "Uh ... sorry," he apologized, setting it carefully on the bench. "I was working."  
  
Dark eyes danced merrily at him. "Yes. I could see that when I drove up."  
  
A slight quirk lifted one side of his mouth, in the reserved Saint John Hawke almost the equivalent of a broad grin. Beyond that he said nothing, merely waited quietly for the woman to speak.  
  
"I said my name was Marella," she began again, giving his lean but muscled form another scan, from boots to jeans to untucked t-shirt. "Perhaps you've heard of me?"  
  
Saint John considered briefly, then shook his head. "No. If we'd met anytime in the last two months, I'd remember."  
  
"Beyond the last two months," the woman returned frankly, "and I would have had a Vietnamese name." At Saint John's surprised look, she smiled. "Captain Saint John Hawke, United States Army Air Cavalry. You did two and a half tours in Viet Nam mostly in-country, until you were captured by the Vietnamese and, by routes rather convoluted, remained MIA until two months ago." Her smile broadened and she dug into the ivory colored bag on her shoulder, extracting a leather wallet and flipping it open. "I know all about you, Mr. Hawke. Until one year ago, I was Archangel's assistant on Project Airwolf."  
  
Hawke considered the Department of National Security identification carefully, tilting his head to see it better. "In that case, you probably heard a lot more about me than you wanted to from String and Dom."  
  
Sadness flickered across her lovely features as she slid the wallet back into her purse. She brushed his arm in a sympathetic gesture, withdrawing before he had opportunity to respond. "My condolences. I knew them both quite well. If it's any consolation, your brother was quite devoted to you. I saw him fight the Government at every level to force them to look for you, even at the risk of his own life. They gave up; he never did."  
  
Saint John nodded. "Thank you. Have you met the rest of the team? They're inside." He gestured her toward the door of the workshop. "That way and to the right."  
  
She stepped ahead of him into the cool interior of the hangar, preceding him to the office. "Is Jason Locke here as well? I was under the impression he was still attached to DNS-Los Angeles?"  
  
Hawke shrugged laconically, one broad shoulder rising minimally. "He had something to discuss with Mike. When those two go at it, I usually find a hole 'til the smoke clears."  
  
They wended their way around the red, white and blue Bell, which was receiving her monthly maintenance, then turned to the right, through a warren of computerized diagnostic equipment, spare parts and work benches, emerging into an enclosed area on the far side of the building. A glass door led to an office where three people sat drinking coffee. The place was neatly arranged and relatively clean save for the old stains on the carpet and the still lingering odor of beer in the air, souvenirs of the previous owner. Marella took one step inside and stopped cold, glancing around.  
  
"Good lord!" she gasped, gaping. "The last time I saw this place it was filled floor to ceiling with old manifests, orders and spare parts! What happened?"  
  
"I think maybe I did." One of the three occupants rose from behind the desk. She was a petite blonde, pretty, with china skin and blue eyes, her carefully done make-up at odds with the greasy coverall and safety boots she wore. "I'm Jo Santini. Can I help you?"  
  
"Marella!" A nattily dressed black man leaped to his feet at the same time as the woman, advancing on the newcomer with one hand extended. "I haven't seen you since you were transferred to Langley! What brings you back to California?"  
  
"Jason." Marella allowed her hand to be taken, every evidence of pleasure on her face. "I'm here on business." She smiled at the third person there, a jeans-clad man in his mid-thirties, whose boyish good looks were only enhanced by the perpetually mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "You must be Major Rivers."  
  
Major Michael Rivers, Air Force pilot on loan to Project Airwolf, also gained his feet, swaggering slightly as he crossed the crowded room to the pretty woman's side. "Must I?" he asked, kissing her hand. "Guess I could do a lot worse. I mean, my name could be something weird, like Sinnnn Jinnnnn."  
  
"Die, Rivers," Saint John Hawke returned amiably, inured to his droll teammate by now.  
  
Marella rolled her eyes and Jo groaned aloud. "Just ignore him," the blonde woman said, sneering genially in Rivers' direction. "He gets like this whenever someone walks in, in a skirt."  
  
"I didn't get like this with Mrs. Bridwell," Mike protested, ushering Marella to the chair he'd just vacated. "Of course, she's sixty-four and built like a water buffalo...."  
  
"What does bring you here, Marella?" Jason Locke broke in on Rivers' ramblings, silencing him by the expedient of tossing an empty paper cup at him. "You're on Company business?"  
  
She waited until the other three had arranged themselves comfortably around the room, Jo and Locke in their seats, Hawke to lean comfortably against the wall facing the woman. Mike, who ever enjoyed the center stage, perched on the edge of Jo's desk less than a foot from Marella's shoulder. She glanced at them once, then ducked her head, pretending to examine a non- existent spot on her skirt for several long seconds. "Is this room secure?" she asked, darting a glance at Locke.  
  
"Just swept."  
  
At his assurance, she took a deep breath and clasped her hands loosely in her lap. "This isn't exactly Company business," she began carefully, raising her head. "I'm here ... unofficially."  
  
"You mean, against orders," Mike translated, grinning at the scowl this earned him. "C'mon, I'm right, right?"  
  
Marella bit her lip. "From what I've read in your dossier, a little thing like that shouldn't bother you in the slightest, Major," she retorted. When he only winked at her, she took a deep breath and proceeded to ignore him completely. "Essentially, that is correct. I'm here against Pentagon orders. What I'm about to tell you is classified Eyes Only. I'm committing a serious breach by mentioning this at all."  
  
Locke leaned forward, loosening his maroon tie at the throat, then undoing his top shirt button in deference to the office's stuffy atmosphere. "Are you sure this is what you want to do? You realize you're involving these people in a security matter."  
  
"Don't bother me none," Mike gibed, swinging his foot insolently.  
  
Marella regarded him steadily, no trace of doubt marring her face. "I made up my mind yesterday, Jason. There's no other way. It concerns Archangel."  
  
Hawke crossed his arms across his chest, a slight frown bisecting his blond brows. "According to what Jason told us, Archangel is dead."  
  
"Killed on a mission in Mexico nearly a month ago," Locke continued, picking a tiny piece of lint off his brown dress pants. "Zeus informed me as security head of the Airwolf project. Does this have to do with his mission?"  
  
The black woman pursed her lips. "This has more to do with Michael. Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III," she explained at Jo's puzzled look. "Code named Archangel for more years than I care to remember." Decided on her course, she settled more comfortably in her chair and crossed her legs, much to the delight of an attentative Mike Rivers. "Working off of information received while he was still in Hong Kong, Michael was investigating a mole within the organization -- someone who he suspected has been feeding technical information to whoever was willing to pay the most for it."  
  
"You said 'technical information,' Hawke interrupted, big-boned physique lounging perfectly at ease yet giving the expression of readiness, like a coiled spring. "Is that military information?"  
  
Marella nodded. "Defensive, mostly. He just barely intercepted data on Airwolf's new jamming systems from going down the tube. That did narrow the field, however, since that data was carefully restricted to the project team located at Fordham base on the Arizona border."  
  
"So if it's one of the team," Locke said, tapping impatiently on the desk top, "why not just go in and clean house? Throw everybody out and start over."  
  
"'Everybody' consists of twenty-one of our most valuable scientists," Marella told him, unconsciously swinging her foot in rhythm to Mike's. "Getting rid of all of them would have crippled no less than seven crucial programs in mid-development. Archangel decided to personally go in and root the traitor out." She paused, full lips pressed tightly together, gloved hands clenching. "He went in, all right. His burned out jeep and an unidentifiable body were discovered a few hours later. He didn't even make one report."  
  
"You want us to figure out who the traitor is?" Jo Santini asked gently, nudging the other woman out of her preoccupation. She brushed forlornly at her dirty coverall, obviously uncomfortable beside the other woman's dazzling attire. "We're pilots not spies ... except for Jason. Wouldn't someone in your organization be more suited to the task?"  
  
Marella stared, fingers stroking each other in beautifully concealed stress. "Perhaps you didn't know it, Miss Santini, but Michael and Stringfellow Hawke were friends of a sort. It was Michael who consented to Hawke's deal about trading Airwolf for a continued search for his brother, Saint John." She stared pointedly at Saint John, her expression closed. "This team owes it to Archangel to get him out." That said, she again relaxed, her tone moderating to a calmer one. "Besides, we already know the traitor's identity. Dr. Simon Steiner was secretly a member of the KGB in 1961 before he emigrated from his native Israel. He offered his services as an engineer to the CIA in 1969 and slowly rose in that organization until he was inducted by the DNS three years ago." Her face screwed up with disgust. "He's probably been passing information along for years, if not to the Soviets, to anyone who could afford to pay. I don't even like to think of the number of lives lost thanks to him."  
  
"And he won't tell you where Michael is?" Rivers asked, a dangerous stillness coming over his body. "Give me five minutes with the scum and I might be able to help you out."  
  
"If only it was that easy." But the smile she sent his way was genuine -- and as coldly agreeing. It faded at once. "Steiner disappeared from Fordham base twenty-four hours after Archangel did. We heard nothing from either of them ... until we received this."  
  
She again dug into her purse, extracting a neatly jacketed ROM disk and passing it to Jo. "One of our agents managed to get this out of Mexico; it arrived at the Pentagon two days ago. I heard about it only by accident." The glitter in her dark eyes told her opinion of that.  
  
"So what do we have on that disk?" Hawke asked bluntly, having not so much as twitched a muscle during the foregoing.  
  
Marella tipped her chin up until she could face him directly. Despite his remoteness he was undoubtedly handsome, well-built despite years of abuse by his captors, and a much bigger man than his slender brother had been. Her gaze glimmered with the merest touch of feminine approval before detached practicality regained the upper hand. "I see you're as cheerful and open as Stringfellow," she remarked wryly. "This disk contains blueprints and satellite photos of Casa del Suerte, a renamed eighteenth century Spanish fortress owned by Carlos Maria Garcito de Mejindas, a direct descendent of Spanish royalty. He's a notorious gambler and perhaps the second richest man in the entire country of Mexico."  
  
"Don't tell me. Don't tell me!" Mike raised both hands palms out and fingers spread, waggling his eyebrows comically. "He's rich, he's important and the Mexican government doesn't want to know from spies, am I right?"  
  
Marella nodded. "You're right. They wouldn't even discuss an inspection much less a full military strike, and our hands are tied barring diplomatic hearings that could well last into the next century. The Pentagon has forbidden us to take action for fear of committing some kind of political faux pas. That's why I've come to you."  
  
"Wouldn't be the first time they put the dollar signs ahead of peace," Locke muttered to no one in particular.  
  
Hawke uncrossed his arms, stuffing his hands comfortably in his pockets. "Maybe if you explained that a man's life is at stake...." He trailed off when everyone turned to stare at him.  
  
"Boy, have you been out of circulation too long," Mike remarked sotto voce. "Do you know what the dollar-peso exchange looks like these days?"  
  
Saint John shrugged and subsided, unoffended. "So what do you suggest?" he asked reasonably of the room.  
  
Marella tossed her head, dislodging a single black curl from under the hat. "Already taken care of, Hawke. Do any of you besides Jason speak spanish?"  
  
"Italiano," Jo said apologetically. "My parents both spoke it. And Uncle Dom."  
  
"I speak Vietnamese like a native." Hawke said this bitterly, old memories living in his features for the briefest instant and then were gone. "Mike?"  
  
Rivers grinned cockily and buffed his nails on his white work shirt. "How do you think I managed to woo so many of them señoritas down Tijuana way? Four years in school, minor in college and a three year stint on the border hones up the old skills a bit, wouldn't you say?"  
  
"You're going to have to be able to say more than, 'Hey, lady, how much do you charge?'" Jo warned, brushing a strand of shoulder length blonde hair out of her face. "If you can't hold your own...."  
  
Rivers raised a hand. "I can do it, sis," he said with friendly insolence. "Hang tough and go parle your italiano a while." Jo huffed out her cheeks but let that pass, ceding the floor back to Marella.  
  
"You two, then," the black woman picked up as though no interruption had taken place. "Jason and Mike. You'll catch a prop to Pindarte, that's a little town about fifteen miles south of Casa del Suerte. From there, you'll take a bus that makes special runs between the town and the castle for the benefit of live-out employees. Once inside you'll scout the terrain, find Archangel and three unidentified prisoners also reportedly being held, and get them out to where Airwolf can stage a pickup."  
  
"Two man commando operation, eh?" Mike said with unseemly glee. He cast an aghast Locke a wicked smile. "You an' me, partner. Guns a'blazin' and karate chops everywhere! Won't that be fun?"  
  
"I'm going inside a fortress," Locke gulped, pulling his tie off and crunching it in his fist, "with a peppy Clint Eastwood?"  
  
"Once inside you'll have some help," Marella said soothingly, waving one long-fingered hand. "We're assuming our contact has done the prelim work. You just supply the muscle and the escape."  
  
Jo looked worriedly from Rivers to Locke, catching her pink lip between her teeth. "Who is the contact? Is it someone reliable?"  
  
"Very reliable." Marella waited until the room was silent before stating, "Our agent is none other than Mrs. Carlos Maria Garcito de Mejindas. It was she who originally tipped Michael off about Steiner. She's an American -- been with the Firm since before she got married. Almost Steiner's alter ego in that respect. In the past she was able to use her position to act as a courier and pull several major jobs for us in the course of her jet setting travels."  
  
"Awfully convenient," Saint John remarked, "just happening to have an agent married to an international spy?"  
  
Marella gave him a wry look. "There isn't anything convenient about it. The whole relationship has been carefully orchestrated from the beginning; the moment Mejindas made contact with his first Balkan country, this marriage was inevitable." She smiled grimly. "This'll probably be Mina's last job with us, not to mention the end of her marriage. You'd better see if you can get her out with Michael."  
  
"How'z about we handle Steiner while we're at it?" Mike asked, showing his teeth.  
  
Jo, only in the game a total of two months, gaped when Marella simply nodded at the suggestion. "If you can manage it, Mr. Rivers, your country will certainly appreciate it ... without telling you so, of course."  
  
"Of course," Rivers repeated, resembling a shark. "We'll see what we can do."  
  
"There is, however, one tiny little problem."  
  
Locke stopped chewing his mustache to stare at the author of that seemingly innocuous statement. "Marella, I know you well enough for that type of remark to make me really start to sweat. What kind of tiny problem are you talking about?"  
  
Marella looked him straight in the eye. "Casa del Suerte is protected by a Haversham screen."  
  
This meant nothing to either Jo or Hawke, who waited silently for the other shoe to drop. To Mike and Jason, however, the woman might have set off a bomb in the room. "Oh, boy," Jason groaned, less thrilled about this piece of information than the possibility of going undercover with Mike Rivers. "Even Airwolf won't be able to get past that. Mike and I will be left without a pickup."  
  
"What is a Haversham screen?" Jo asked curiously, taking the plunge. "Who was Haversham?"  
  
It was Mike who answered, stone sober for once. "We're talking about a perimeter defense system about as sophisticated as they come. At varying distances from the base, they've laid out a ring of missiles, lasers and antiaircraft designed to cover every square inch of air space with multiple redundancy."  
  
"Alexander Haversham was a mathematician," Marella added, "who devised the configuration for the weaponry. It's not random, but it's so devilishly complicated that your computers can't discern the pattern. Theoretically -- and so far, in practice -- the human mind cannot function fast enough to react to the number and quality of offenses without a tactical computer backup."  
  
"We've gotten through air defenses before," Hawke pointed out imperturbably. "On stealth, we should be in and out before they know we're there."  
  
She brushed that aside with a gesture. "Not with the sensors they'll be using. Airwolf will be detected, make no mistake. Besides, you're going to need Miss Santini in a second helicopter to carry that number of passengers." She tipped her head at Jo. "I've already arranged for a Bell Huey to be standing by for your use. Of course, no Army helicopter will make it through a Haversham screen; your only chance will be for Airwolf to run interference."  
  
Locke stood up, turning until he could face Hawke directly. "That means knocking out their air defenses one at a time, at a low speed and lower altitude, while they're throwing everything they have at us too fast for any known aircraft to react to. Considering those circumstances, without a tactical prediction we won't have enough warning to bring the proper weapons on-line in time to do enough good, and no pilot can react fast enough to do the job without computer assistance." He spun angrily on the waiting black woman, mustache bristling with irritation. "What you're proposing, Marella, is a suicide mission, inside and out."  
  
"Maybe," she flared, going still, "but you owe Michael...."  
  
"Ya know...." Rivers' quiet voice brought silence. "There is one way to penetrate a Haversham screen."  
  
"You know that's impossible," Marella gritted, drumming her nails on the arm of her chair. "Once, perhaps, but not now."  
  
Rivers lifted one brow and slid off his perch, turning to lean his back against the glass enclosure behind the desk. "Is it?"  
  
Jo Santini swept up a thick maintenance schedule from her desk and swung backward, whacking Rivers across the chest; he doubled over with a low 'Whoof!' "Spill it," she ordered, pulling back for another blow. "What is this great, magical way to get Airwolf through their security?"  
  
Rivers retreated from that lethal weapon, raising both hands placatingly. "By finding someone who's flown through one before and lived to tell the tale. If they remember the pattern, we can feed the data into the computers. That advanced warning could be enough of an edge to make all the difference."  
  
"And the only man who's ever made it through a Haversham screen," Marella stated flatly, glaring daggers at Rivers, "is Stringfellow Hawke. Even then Airwolf was damaged so badly he almost didn't make it back."  
  
Unaffected by either woman's ire, Rivers stroked his smooth-shaven chin thoughtfully. "As a pilot, I'd give an arm and a leg to find out how he did it, too. With the tactical computers this side of useless, it would have been like tip-toeing through a minefield blindfolded."  
  
Hawke shifted uncomfortably, though he did not move otherwise. "My brother was born with a sixth sense about his flying. Even in 'Nam he always seemed to know where the enemy was even before they showed up on radar. If there was anyone who could make it through a minefield blindfolded, it would be String."  
  
"Who is dead," Marella shot back, adding apologetically to Hawke, "I'm sorry, but I've no time for the niceties. We're talking about the life of a good man."  
  
Mike tipped his head at the bigger blond. "Saint John?"  
  
A dozen heartbeats passed while Saint John Hawke stared at his friend and partner. Rivers said nothing more, merely waited for the older man to make up his mind. Finally, Hawke nodded. "We do have a pilot," he began quietly, leaving his position against the wall. He crossed to the small radio unit near the door and reached for the microphone, raising it to his lips. He flipped two switches and adjusted the dial until the static was replaced by a clear, open line. "WXSH this is WCSA, do you copy? Over." He waited, body utterly motionless, for one full minute, then pressed the send button again. "WXSH this is WCSA, do you copy? Over."  
  
There was a click and the dead air was filled with a man's voice, low and controlled and infinitely familiar. "I'm here, Saint John."  
  
The voice belonged to Stringfellow Hawke.  
  
*  
  
For Jo Santini, the world spent several seconds attaining a new, right- angled bent, red spots dancing tauntingly before her eyes. This is a trick! she screamed, though no sound emerged. But no, that was Stringfellow Hawke on the other end of that mike; that aloof, solemn tone was unmistakable. But was it a dead man she was listening to or a miracle? Either way would be a miracle, I suppose, she thought hysterically, fighting her way out of the fog.  
  
"I need to see you," Saint John was saying, keeping his attention on the radio as though it were the most important thing on the planet. "And I'm bringing ... friends."  
  
There was a pause, and the spectral voice, when it resumed, sounded more resigned than pleased. "Whatever you say. Out."  
  
The line went dead. Saint John Hawke carefully rehung the mike and hunched his shoulders before turning to face the room again. "If he's strong enough," he said gruffly, "I'm sure you'll have your pilot."  
  
"He's alive," Locke murmured, shaking his head as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "When you took him out of the hospital we naturally assumed...."  
  
"Maybe we have a chance after all," Marella said, eyes shining.  
  
Jo barely heard them. She placed her palms flat on the desk top, using the waning strength in her arms to push herself to her feet. Hawke watched warily as she circled the desk, coming to stand directly to his fore. "Jo, I....  
  
"You insensitive creep!" It was the strongest insult she could manage at the moment, but it was accompanied by an open-handed slap that rocked Saint John's head back on his neck. Irish-Italian temper boiling over, Jo came in for a second swing, only stopping when her wrist was encased in one of Saint John's big hands. "How dare you?!" she snarled, yanking her arm free but not swinging again. "How dare you let me go for two months thinking Stringfellow was dead? I grieved for him! After all these years...."  
  
Hawke rubbed at the rapidly growing red spot on his cheek. "I warned you a long time ago," he started, meeting her glare apologetically. "Do you remember what I told you once? When I was home on leave for the last time? I said that String could look after himself better than any man I'd ever known, but when he couldn't do it, I was going to do it for him. No matter what it cost. Remember?"  
  
She nodded, recalling the conversation very well for all that it had been fifteen-plus years ago and the last time she'd seen him before his rescue from Khmer Rouge. She'd believed him completely then; it didn't look as though all that time in a prison camp had dulled that big-brotherly protective attitude one iota despite the fact that Stringfellow Hawke was easily the most dangerous man she'd ever met. "What about it?" she snapped, in no mood to be mollified.  
  
Saint John opened his arms, a curiously vulnerable pose in so big a man. Vulnerable to me, Jo realized, old friendship cooling her anger a few degrees. "This time he couldn't look after himself, Jo, and I had to do it for him. After all that's happened -- the conspiracy, the government, the camps, I.... And I didn't know you any more. Or them at all," he added, pointing at Mike and Jason, who were paying rapt attention. "Only that you were working with them."  
  
"To get you out of Burma! Besides, you obviously trusted Mike," she accused, poking him in the chest with one long nail. "He knew and I didn't."  
  
Saint John captured her hand again, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. "Mike dealt himself in. He guessed what I was up to and wouldn't let me shake him. Besides, I needed help to get String out of the enemy's reach."  
  
"The Company is the enemy?" Locke asked, only half joking. Trust had been a factor with the team in the past.  
  
Saint John looked him right in the eye. "I don't know. There are too many wheels within wheels, Jason. I don't pretend to understand any of them -- I'm only a chopper pilot. I do know I needed to protect my brother."  
  
"Glad I could be of use where the spy system failed," Rivers interjected, looking irritatingly smug. Jo wished she could slap him, too. "Leave it to the Air Force to pull the Army's bacon out of the fire."  
  
"Maybe the Army can return the favor some time," Saint John told him with a hint of the easy rapport that marked their relationship.  
  
Mike winked. "The Army's come through a couple of times already."  
  
Jo shifted her weight from one foot to the other and Hawke turned back to her. "I couldn't take a chance on anyone else," he went on humor fading. "Jason is still with the DNS ..." He glanced an apology at the black man, who looked away. "... and you're...." He stopped, gazing at Jo with honest affection. "You're no spy, Jo. If you'd known String was still alive, everybody in Van Nuys would have been able to tell. Everybody including the Company." He shook his head. "I couldn't take the chance -- not with String's life at stake. I'm sorry."  
  
She turned away, squeezing her eyes shut. She felt betrayed, angry and happy all at once, yet it wasn't as if she couldn't understand, him. He was right in that she was no agent -- her emotions wrote themselves on her features, open and easy to read just like her father's had been. Just like Uncle Dom.  
  
She was also unsurprised that Saint John had chosen to close his brother off to himself. Her memory was too full of other incidents in their combined past where she had been shut out of that private little circle, isolated from that special closeness the two brothers had always shared -- and she, an only child, had always envied. Uncle Dom had once explained to her that Saint John and Stringfellow were bound to be closer than normal; they were the only family each had left for all that the two Santini's might love them as their own. She sensed Hawke's body close behind, there was a hand on her shoulder, and she sighed. She had finally come to accept that closeness between the brothers all those years ago ... and, just maybe, could accept it now.  
  
Several seconds later she took a deep breath, that sure rooted inner strength she'd always had to draw upon bringing both shoulders back and head up. She turned, searching his face, seeking the assurance she needed. "There's been no danger for almost two months," she pointed out quietly. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"  
  
He spread his hands helplessly, encompassing the others. "There's been no attacks for two months," he corrected her. "Whoever killed Dominic is still out there, maybe waiting for another chance at String. We never did establish that it was Airwolf the assassin was after."  
  
"I never thought of that," Jo admitted fairly.  
  
"We did." Jason reseated himself in the battered chair. "We went through every file we had on either Stringfellow Hawke or Dominic Santini -- every mission since they'd stolen Airwolf."  
  
"I even checked the Pentagon computers for records of Hawke's Army service," Marella said from her own chair. "Between Jason and myself we discovered a dozen and one possibilities but no hard evidence at all."  
  
"Do you really think it could be the Company, Saint John?" Jo asked, eyes wide, mind reeling from the concept.  
  
Jason went still. "We don't do assassinations," he stated flatly.  
  
Mike crossed his arms, regarding the man with his head tilted to the side. "Zebra Squad," he responded enigmatically.  
  
Jo didn't understand the reference but Jason gritted his teeth and shut up. Probably something she didn't want to know anyway, she decided. She became aware again of that warm, large hand on her arm, and looked up into those surprisingly kind blue-gray eyes.  
  
"I swear I wanted to tell you sooner," Hawke finished his confession, "but we decided to wait. I wanted String to have time to recover a bit before the Company knew he was around." He tapped his own temple. "Recover here. He was in pretty bad shape, Jo."  
  
"We decided?" Locke parroted, white teeth flashing under his neat mustache, good humor at least overtly restored. "Knowing you, Saint John, I have to wonder if your brother had any say in the matter at all."  
  
"If Stringfellow..." Mike made a face. "What a name. Anyway, if Stringfellow Hawke is anything like that Army Captain the AF test pilots used to gossip about, you have enough trouble getting this guy to cooperate on something he wants to do, much less anything he's dead set against."  
  
"Amen," Jason added ardently.  
  
"I see you do know my brother," Saint John tossed their way, though his eyes remained locked on Jo Santini's. "California's a long way from Viet Nam, but not far enough from fifteen years."  
  
She stared deep into his strong face, and his genuine regret at hurting her permitted forgiveness. "If you ever do that to me again," she warned, making two fists and waving one under his long nose, "I'll deck you for sure."  
  
Hawke cracked a tiny smile, visibly relieved. "Deal." He waved invitingly at the rest of the group. "Shall we take a little trip? There's a mountain I'd like to reintroduce you to."  
  
*** 


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
They took Santini Air's largest chopper, a vintage Sikorsky repainted in red, white and blue, and able to hold six people and cargo to boot. The trip into the mountains passed quickly, with Rivers, at the controls, telling outrageous anecdotes about his adventures in Mexico, and Locke and Jo trying vainly to shut him up. There was an aura of excitement that gripped the entire team, the adrenal rush of an impending mission, the expectation of receiving one of their own back again. Forty-eight minutes after lift-off they were setting down above the waters of an incredibly blue mountain lake and basking in unobstructed high-altitude sunshine.  
  
"Obviously, the old hiding places are the best," Marella remarked, jumping lightly onto the wooden dock. "After Hawke ... I mean, Stringfellow, was reported dead, we never gave this area another look."  
  
Jo filled her lungs with aromatic, pine-scented air, a happy smile lighting her face. "This place hasn't changed at all," she marvelled, spinning in place to examine her surroundings. "It must be four years since I've been here and everything is exactly the way I remember it. Oh! Look!" All eyes followed her pointing finger to watch a great-winged brown and white creature as it glided, rising and falling on the fickle currents. "That's an American Eagle! I didn't know there were any still around here!"  
  
Locke, too, was enchanted by the scenery. "I've never seen a bald eagle before. I didn't imagine them to be so large." He strolled from the dock to the little path leading up to the cabin, dark eyes taking in every sight and sound with pleasure. "It's beautiful here. So peaceful. Perfect for convalescing young pilots, eh?" he said, smiling at Saint John Hawke.  
  
"This is my brother's home," the big blond returned mildly, unzipping his jacket. "He'd've felt caged in my townhouse. And as long as he can get around...." He tipped his head, watching the eagle. "You can't keep people caged; after awhile they start to die ... a bit at a time."  
  
"You were caged for fifteen years," Jo said softly, laying a small hand on his arm.  
  
He looked down at her with that gentle, sad smile that was so much a part of him. "I'm not caged any more, Jo."  
  
"This place is pretty but not convalescent perfect," Rivers muttered grudgingly and just loud enough for all to hear. He sniffed, then sneezed, politely pardoning himself. "I'd go bonkers up here inside of a week. No chicks, no bars...." He pulled a handkerchief out of his jeans' pocket and blew his nose, offering the nearest evergreen a disgusted look. "Terrific."  
  
"Wait a minute, weren't you the Boy Scout?" Saint John asked, fixing him with a puzzled look. "Since when do you hate the woods?"  
  
The younger man screwed his face into a sheepish moue. "I love the woods ... when I've had my allergy shots. I was due for another round last week. Nobody told me we'd be visiting the Hermit of the North on such short notice."  
  
"A Boy Scout is always prepared," Jo quoted impishly. She tugged his arm, pulling him along behind the already moving team. "I'm sure you'll survive a couple of hours. Come on; it looks like we're expected."  
  
They were indeed. A hound dog trotted down the path to meet them, running lazy circles around Jo and howling mournfully until she bent down to scratch his head. "Good dog! Are you still hanging around here?"  
  
Tet licked her hand and edged past Mike, who was watching him apprehensively, to Saint John, who bent to give the animal a quick pat. "Hello, Tet," he said, a tiny smile on his lips. "Looks exactly like the dog I used to have. At least, the dog belonged to me; after the first couple of months, he adopted String." The dog paused then tilted his head, staring back up the way he'd come. He woofed and loped off. "I assume that means my brother is waiting up there for us."  
  
It was no great distance to the cabin, which sat nestled against the mountain one hundred feet from the lake. It was of heavy logs, solidly built, and the gray smoke pouring out of the chimney gave it a pleasant aspect. As the group approached they came to see a young man sitting on the outside step, one arm around the returned hound. He waited until they were only several yards away before coming to his feet; he used the porch railing to pull himself up then balanced easily, favoring one leg, displaying an inborn grace retained despite the awkwardness of injury.  
  
Narrowed blue eyes scanned the group once, settling on Jo Santini, who had come into the lead and reached him first. "Hi, Jo," he greeted her with uncharacteristic shyness, crossing his arms across his chest in a defensive posture, then deliberately dropping them. Tension sang in every muscle of the slender body, the impression being almost as though he was expecting to be struck and was determined to allow it.  
  
Jo didn't answer at first. She waited until she'd climbed the first porch step from which vantage she could regard the young man from his own height. She stared expressionlessly for a single moment, searching blue eye meeting guarded one, then slipped her arms around his neck, giving her old friend a brief, hard hug, planting a kiss on his forehead before releasing him. "If you ever pull anything like this on me again, Stringfellow Hawke, I'll kill you myself. Is that clear?"  
  
Little lines appeared around his eyes, more revealing than any grin, banishing the distance between them. "Clear."  
  
"Good."  
  
He touched her arm as she made to move away, looking suddenly very sad. "I'm ... sorry about Dom."  
  
Jo rested one hand on his chest sympathetically. "I'm sorry for you, even more. He might have been my uncle but he was your father." Rather than removing her hand, she frowned and poked familiarly at his bulky brown sweater, tugging it up until she could see the tightly belted jeans. "These clothes must be two sizes too big for you; you're thin as a rail." He retreated from her maternal admonitions, his irritation provoking a mischievous twinkle. "I, however," she added, patting her own perfectly curved hip through her white slacks, "have put on five pounds just this year. Disgusting, isn't it?"  
  
The hard-won smile transformed his face, softening away edges and making him look even younger and less forbidding. "You look wonderful," he said, nevertheless glancing backwards, seeking someone else.  
  
"Just remember that."  
  
She stepped aside, allowing him access to the rest of the group. He nodded at Marella, who beamed right back, looking pleased; she'd never been fond of the reticent young pilot but had always held an appreciation for loyalty -- something Stringfellow Hawke had displayed to a fault. Jason and Mike received only a cursory glance for it was Saint John's gaze he caught and held. The sight of his older brother seemed to be reassuring though he did not lower his guard. "I guess you'd better come in," he invited gruffly, leading the way into the cabin.  
  
"You've met him before," Rivers asked Jason Locke out of the side of his mouth. "Is he always this friendly?"  
  
Locke grimaced. "He's having a good day."  
  
Mike sighed, his work boots thudding on the wooden porch. "I thought Saint John was too serious, but baby brother is downright gloomy. You think that smile he gave Jo hurt his face?"  
  
Locke smothered a laugh in his palm but managed to add, "He hasn't had much to smile about for the last half of his life," before crossing the threshold into Stringfellow Hawke's lair.  
  
The interior was more spacious than outward appearances might suggest, comfortably furnished and unexpectedly homey. The living room was dominated by a large stone hearth against the right wall; the crackling fire in the grate burned nearly to embers but still gave off heat and light.  
  
Marella crossed directly to the tan sofa, seating herself and crossing her long legs comfortably at the knee. "Good to see you in one piece, Hawke," she greeted the pilot, moving her purse so Jo could sit at her side. "I should have known better than to believe the rumors of your death."  
  
"They weren't exaggerated by all that much," the pilot said, fixing a gaze over her shoulder.  
  
"I think I'm the only one here you don't know. Mike Rivers." Mike extended his hand to Stringfellow, the grip being reluctantly accepted and immediately released. "I've heard quite a bit about you."  
  
"He was the one at the hospital," Saint John mentioned, leaning against the stone hearth and crossing one foot over the other.  
  
Recognition lit the younger Hawke's face and he studied the newcomer more closely. "I owe you for that."  
  
Rivers dismissed the gratitude with a nonchalant wave. "No problem, man. We'll discuss repayment the next time I need help landing some chick." He paused for a reaction, receiving only a blank stare in return. "That's a joke, buddy-boy," he relented, slapping the other man on the arm. "Me? Needing help with a chick? A joke, get it?" He blew out his cheeks, spreading his hands ceilingward. "And they talk about tough audiences."  
  
Hawke ducked his head, one side of his mouth turning up almost unwillingly. "I get it."  
  
Rivers surrendered and began to wander the room, beginning with the gleaming cello standing neatly in the far corner. "Bet you can really wail on this thing," he muttered, plucking a single note. "Get booked at many bar mitzvahs?"  
  
Stringfellow joined his brother by the fire. He walked with a pronounced limp, his lips set as though it were still painful to move around. Closer examination revealed both a metal leg brace visible through the neatly slit jeans and an expensive silver-headed walking stick by the door, which was even now growing cobwebs from disuse. "You need something from me?" he asked, fixing Saint John with an inquiring gaze.  
  
"Michael needs something from you," Marella said firmly.  
  
String glanced from his brother to Locke, who had seated himself in the stuffed chair opposite the couch. There was an odd look in his eyes, dawning hope too smothered in pain to fully surface as anything except skepticism. "You told Saint John, Michael was dead."  
  
"We're having a special on resurrections today," Rivers quipped, having left the cello to examine the paintings that hung on each wall. He scowled, peering more closely at the signature adorning one oil. "This can't be right. This is a ... Van Gogh?"  
  
No one acknowledged that last, least of all Stringfellow. He pierced Marella with a sharp gaze, head tilted to the side, expression so perfectly neutral as to scream facade. "If Michael is still alive, where's he been? And why did Zeus assign someone else as ... liaison ... to Airwolf?"  
  
"Don't say it like it's a dirty word," Locke chided in a rough approximation of Mike's insouciance. He was ignored as thoroughly as if he'd not been there at all. He rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath, "Michael did warn me about you."  
  
"Michael Coldsmith-Briggs has spent the last three weeks, six days as a prisoner in Mexico, waiting for his captors to finish ... negotiations with a country in the Muslim bloc." Marella, ever loyal to her former boss, pursed her lips, teeth grinding in barely suppressed fury. "They'll be selling him to the highest bidder sometime within the next week, according to my source."  
  
Stringfellow again glanced at his brother and the hope struggled upward another notch. Then the hardness seeped back into his rounded jaw. "You're telling me Michael is still alive after all this time, and no one's gone in after him?"  
  
"No one." Marella tossed her dark head then frowned and pulled off her hat, hanging it on the back of the couch. "They can't even risk sending Zebra Squad in there, though they're on stand-by status and will be activated the minute Michael is out of Mexico. Right now the Pentagon is scrambling to plug up the multitude of holes this is going to leave in national security." She sighed. "I can't even imagine how many agents' lives are going to be lost if Michael breaks ... if Zebra Squad fails."  
  
Jo tugged at the black, long-sleeved blouse she'd donned before leaving the airport, loosening the top button in deference to the heat from the fire. Across from her, Locke, again in tie and suit jacket, pulled at his own collar in envy. "I have a question," she began, casting Locke an impish look then unfastening two more buttons. "What's taken them so long? If this Archangel is a member of the DNS...."  
  
"A member of the Central Committee," Locke interjected, smoothing a tiny wrinkle in his brown pants. "Deputy Director of Operations."  
  
"Okay, a top member of the Firm," she picked up again. "What's taken them so long to sell him out? With the kind of information he must be carrying, any country in the world would probably pay through the nose for him, including a couple of allies. Why wait?"  
  
"Maybe his bills become due then," Mike gibed, abandoning a Renoir to take his place behind the sofa. He perched on its back, balancing himself on one hip. "Maybe they were shopping around."  
  
"Or maybe it's a trap?" Saint John Hawke guessed softly. "If they have Archangel, they might know about Airwolf, too."  
  
Marella hesitated, gloved fingers drumming the arm of the couch. "If Khadafy is involved in the negotiations, they most certainly do know about Airwolf; if not, they've probably heard rumors. I've considered the possibility of a trap, of course...."  
  
"Of course!" Rivers leaned forward until he could see the attractive black woman around Jo, white teeth bared in a boyish grin. "So naturally you decided to send us in, anyway."  
  
Marella tipped her head up, piercing him with a glare. "No one's forcing you on this mission, Major. If you're afraid to try...."  
  
"Whoa, whoa!" Rivers raised a hand, cutting her off, indignation flaring in his face. "I never said anything about being afraid." He straightened, patting the top of Jo's head. "As a matter of fact, I'm looking forward to practicing my spanish. Them little Mexicana towns are usually stuffed with lonely señoritas."  
  
Jo gave him an irritated swat. "One of those señoritas are going to be the death of you some day," she growled, brushing her mussed hair back into place.  
  
"We all gotta go sometime, sweetheart," he retorted good-naturedly. "Can you think of a better way?"  
  
Stringfellow Hawke glanced up at his brother, one brow raised inquiringly. "What does he mean by that? This isn't going to be a frontal assault?"  
  
Saint John jerked a thumb first at the placidly lounging Rivers, then to the more serious Locke, the action flapping his light white shirt at the sleeves. "The target is being held inside an old spanish fortress on the coast -- no landing space inside the wall, no way Airwolf would be able to get in without blowing it up."  
  
"And for obvious reasons," Rivers said, flipping a wavy blond lock out of his face, "we'd like to avoid blowing anything up until we've gotten the good guys out of there." He paused, studying Stringfellow's expressionless features. "You're really not a very cheerful person, are you."  
  
"Not one of my faults," Hawke replied, a suspicious twinkle borning then dying in the back of his blue eyes.  
  
Rivers looked startled. "That was almost a joke!" he gasped, pressing both hands to his chest. "I ... I ... I'm speechless."  
  
"It would be the first time," Jo snapped, quelling him with a look. "Would you shut up and let us get on with this? In case you've forgotten, you and Jason are catching a plane for Mexico in a few hours."  
  
Rivers subsided and Marella picked up the story. "I have a contact inside. She'll help Jason and Mike find Archangel and any other prisoners Mejindas is holding, get them outside the fortress by any means possible, where Airwolf can assist in a pickup." She stopped drumming the arm of the couch and spread her fingers in a casual gesture. "That's the mission in a nutshell -- one team going in covert, and Airwolf to run interference for the final extraction."  
  
"That's not the entire mission," Locke reminded her firmly. He pulled a linen handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbed at the sweat beading his brow, still making no effort to remove his jacket or tie. The look he gave Stringfellow was solemn. "The fortress is very old; the Haversham screen protecting the fortress is very new."  
  
"A Haversham screen?" Even the normally unflappable Stringfellow Hawke looked dismayed at that. "A full screen for some old castle?"  
  
"The man is very rich," Marella gritted, "and has been suspected of running more than one covert operation from that old building. We know he's involved in something more than selling human beings, but have only been able to discern the tip of the iceberg." She gestured at Locke. "Once Jason has decoded the computer disk I gave him, you should have high-res satellite photos of the installation; they'll have a basic floorplan of Casa del Suerte. Beyond that, I can't help you."  
  
Saint John rested one large hand on his brother's shoulder, turning him slightly until they were facing. "If you're up to it ..." He quelled Marella's impending objection with a sharp look. "... we're going to need you in Airwolf. You're the only one of us who's ever flown through one of those systems."  
  
"The only one who's lived to tell about it ... so they say," Rivers added with blatant skepticism.  
  
Stringfellow stiffened, his voice grew soft but the hard edge of steel rang in its depths. "But you don't believe it."  
  
Mike, unperturbed by the implied challenge, offered a lazy grin. "Wellll, I suppose dumb luck might get you through once; that's no guarantee you can do it again. And we don't really need you flying Airwolf. A little floor plan of the defense paradigm ought'a do it."  
  
Saint John tightened his hold on his brother, catching him just as the younger man took a menacing step forward. "Ignore him, String. He always mouths off before a mission. You get used to it."  
  
"This is more than just mouthing off," the younger brother returned coldly, though he did not pull away from Saint John's grip.  
  
Though offered as a statement, the implication was that of a question, and Rivers treated it as such. Jaw tightening, he dropped both feet to the floor and stood, poising himself with hands on his hips. "Let's just say I have a little problem with this arrangement."  
  
"You mean with me," String asserted.  
  
Rivers nodded. "With you."  
  
"What's your problem, Mike?" Saint John asked, no longer leaning against the mantle. His muscles were as taut as Stringfellow's; he stood almost protectively at his brother's side though his stance was devoid of any threat toward Rivers. "If it's legit, spit it out."  
  
"Legit?" String demanded, shooting him an startled look.  
  
Blue eyes for once devoid of boyish mischief regarded Stringfellow Hawke long enough for the look to be actually insulting. Mike waited until the other man's fine lips had drawn into a line before speaking. "I happen to consider my life a 'legit' concern," he began, and there was a no animosity in his voice, just professional calculation. "Once Jason and I are inside that fortress, our only chance of getting back out in one piece is going to rely on Airwolf getting through that defense screen."  
  
"We know that, Mike," Saint John said reasonably. "You don't think Airwolf can make it?"  
  
"Airwolf?" Rivers licked his lips. "I figure maybe if any piece of machinery can make it through a Haversham screen, it's Airwolf. I just don't think he ..." He pointed at Stringfellow, who had not relaxed one iota. "... can do it."  
  
"You...." the younger Hawke began, clenching his fists.  
  
"Why?" That was Marella, and the very interest in her question rooted Hawke in his tracks. "As Saint John said, if your objection is legitimate, spit it out."  
  
"And it had better be good," Jason warned from his chair.  
  
Rivers gestured, his waving hand taking in the man from head to foot. "You've got the reputation of a good pilot," he began generously, "but sad to say, you're not looking that great right now. I understand that crash and burn nearly wiped you permanently."  
  
"Mike! How could you be so cruel?" Jo exclaimed, gaping at the blond pilot in astonishment.  
  
Rivers shot her a look containing a hint of apology. "That's not my intention, sweetheart. Getting out of Casa del Suerte is." He ambled slowly to the Hawke's, making no pretense of subtlety. He and Stringfellow were of a height though Rivers was ten pounds heavier, and both carried themselves with the confident, relaxed alertness of the true predator. "Not counting your bum leg -- explosion nearly ripped your ankle it off, didn't it? -- I'd say your health wasn't anywhere near flight specs. Your reflexes and reaction time have got to be hovering somewhere near zero." He took a final step closer, now nose-to-nose with the glowering Hawke. "I'll add to that the fact that you haven't logged time with anything bigger than a paper airplane in two months."  
  
All eyes shifted to Stringfellow, who had allowed no more than a flash of hurt to touch his features before he could restore the impassive mask. "That is a logical consideration," Marella said, scanning the still-mending man clinically. "Penetrating a Haversham screen will require someone in top form. Are you up to it, Stringfellow?"  
  
Dark blue eyes fastened on the window, focussing on the distant mountains visible through the glass. "I can do the job."  
  
"You say," Mike volleyed.  
  
Saint John again touched his brother's taut shoulder, he addressed Mike though his words were directed to the room. "If my brother says he can take us through, you can bet your life on it."  
  
"That's the problem," Rivers flashed back, making a chopping gesture. "I am betting my life -- and Jason's, and Jo's. And I don't like the odds." He took a deep breath, forcing his tone back to one of calm reasonability. "I propose I take Airwolf in."  
  
"You think you'd have a better chance at penetrating Haversham's mathematics than Mr. Hawke?" Locke asked, studying both men closely.  
  
Mike nodded. "I'm in a lot better shape."  
  
"No good." That was Marella, shaking her dark head. "You're needed to go in with Jason. He can't manage Mejindas' army by himself."  
  
Mike shrugged. "Fine. Let Saint John handle Airwolf. He's logged a dozen missions in the past two months."  
  
"But she's been String's baby for the last two years," Jo remarked fairly. "That has to count for something."  
  
Stringfellow said nothing at first, simply continued to gaze out the window, his face stone. "It's up to you, String," Saint John told him softly. "You're the best one of us for the job, but it is dangerous and you're not recovered yet." He shook the tense shoulder under his hand, strong, solemn features taking on a uniquely gentle aspect that made both Jo and Mike stare at him hard with wonder. "I don't doubt your ability, but almost losing you once makes me feel a little cautious."  
  
"I lost you for fifteen years," the younger man murmured just loud enough for Saint John to hear. To the rest, "I'm the best chance Michael -- or you -- have of getting out. Airwolf is my machine, and Michael is a ... friend," he added, finally looking up at his brother."  
  
Dark blue eye met blue-gray, then Saint John nodded. "It's settled, then." He glanced from String to Mike, who was waiting with an obstinate expression. "If you don't feel good about this, Mike, you'd better stay out of it. Maybe Marella can find someone else to go inside with Jason."  
  
Marella opened her mouth but had no chance to reply before Rivers had thrown up his hands. "Forget it," he snarled. "If Jason is going to have any chance at all of getting out, he's going to need me as backup." He paused, turning grim. "I just hope there's someone there to pick us up once we're clear."  
  
That settled, Jason ran a hand through his short, curly hair. "We'd better get going. We're going to have to run that disk through Airwolf's computers before Mike and I can catch our transportation in."  
  
Rather than rising, Marella stretched, kicking off her shoes comfortably. "Not me, gentlemen. As of last night I'm a security risk. The Pentagon forbade this mission, remember?" She tucked her feet up under her. "If I'm picked up, the Firm will know about this mission -- maybe in time to do something about it. I'm staying right here until you get back. Tet and I will keep each other company for awhile."  
  
"Then the rest of us...."  
  
Anything Saint John was about to say was lost when Jo clapped her hands loudly for attention. "Oh, no, you don't. Before we dig into this assignment, you promised to tell me how you got String out of that hospital and what's been happening since then. The chopper was too loud for the story and I really want to know. Now," she finished, crossing her arms firmly.  
  
"I'd rather like to know myself," Marella added for good measure.  
  
Still touching his brother's shoulder and with Stringfellow's eyes full upon him, Saint John Hawke took a deep breath and told them....  
  
*  
  
The VA hospital was old stone, practically government issue, battered and dirty from many years use. Inside all was organized chaos as with any large facility, white uniformed attendants dancing a delicate pas de deux with military personal, conversation muted by scrubbed tile and gravity.  
  
Saint John entered the bustle though became no part of it; focussed straight ahead and slowing for no one, he passed like Moses through the Red Sea, the crowd parting for him grudgingly but recognizing an unstoppable object when it saw one  
  
Though only permitted to see Stringfellow once, Jo had been able to tell he was in bad shape. Internal injuries, broken bones, burns and concussion. According to her, he'd been so drugged that he'd barely realized she was there at all. "He's dying, Saint John," she'd managed through free tears. "We're going to lose him!"  
  
No, I'm not, Saint John thought doggedly, making his way to the second floor nurses' station. I waited all this time to see my baby brother again; I'm not going to lose him now.  
  
He stopped at the circular desk-barrier, and an elderly woman in horn- rimmed glasses looked up politely at his beckon. "I'm here to see my brother," Saint John blurted, leaning against the counter. "Stringfellow Hawke. Which room?"  
  
Her expression changed from courtesy to consternation. "We didn't know you were.... Oh! Dr. Melloni!"  
  
A man in surgical scrubs deviated his course at her call. "Mrs. Clayton?"  
  
She gestured to an impatiently waiting Hawke with a pencil. "Stringfellow Hawke's brother to see him."  
  
The man regarded Saint John for a split second, then beckoned him to the side of the corridor. "Before you see your brother," he began grimly, "I think you should be apprised of his condition."  
  
"Just what is my brother's condition?" Saint John asked silkily, wanting to rip out the walls if they kept him from String much longer.  
  
After expressing surprise that a relative of the patient had appeared at all, the surgeon, a middle-aged, pot-bellied man with sympathetic eyes, stated flatly that the younger Hawke wasn't expected to survive. "His condition continues to deteriorate," he went on with brusque candor. "His vitals are dropping steadily and we're looking at total system shutdown within a couple of days at the outside."  
  
"But how?" Saint John's mind had reeled from the shock of the news. His brother -- his baby brother -- dying? "You've got him in a hospital," he'd charged the surgeon wildly. "Do something for him!"  
  
A young nurse appeared briefly and spoke a few words; the man waved her aside curtly, returning immediately to Saint John before the pilot would have throttled him. Stepping closer, the doctor lowered his voice, glancing once over his shoulder. "I'm under orders not to discuss your brother's case with anyone ..." He flapped a hand nonchalantly. "... but I've never been very good at taking orders and I think you should know. Mr. Hawke's condition is critical -- grave, in fact. He's fighting -- or perhaps I should say, not fighting a massive infection that the antibiotics are failing to arrest. We're also ninety percent certain he's still bleeding inside, but two exploratories have failed to discover where, and he's much too weak for a third. He needs a specialist, but my instructions forbid calling one in."  
  
Saint John's blood went cold. "Who's instructions?" he asked numbly.  
  
The man shrugged and stepped back. "They came from outside the hospital through the hospital administrator. Something to do with heightened security. That's all I know." He hesitated again, then swallowed and went on. "As the only next of kin, you should also be aware that psychologically your brother is in no better shape than physically. I understand he lost a friend in the same explosion that injured him?" At Saint John's nod, he went on, "There's a good chance there wouldn't be anything a surgeon can do for him anyway if he's given up -- stopped trying to live. He's not even making the minimum progress we would have expected after the interval involved."  
  
String? Stopped fighting? If so, he wasn't the stubborn little scrapper Saint John had -- sometimes exasperatedly -- watched grow up. "I'm here now," he heard himself say through frozen lips. "And I have enough fight left for both of us."  
  
"You may need it."  
  
Something in the man's tone prevented Saint John from immediately resuming his trek toward his brother. "What do you mean?" he demanded, taking a menacing step toward the other and clenching large fists.  
  
Uncowled, the doctor lifted his chin, his wiry beard lifting from his breast. "Because we treat government officials as well as veterans, we've been subject to several sanctions in the past -- CIA types and the like. Add to that the fact that I'm a veteran myself -- saw a lot of action in 'Nam -- and I've picked up a sixth sense about something being wrong." He straightened, his hand on Hawke's wrist. "Mr. Hawke, there's definitely something wrong in your brother's case. For one thing, they have him in an isolated private room instead of ICU; with a heart monitor, serious infection and raging fever, he should have constant attendance rather than sporadic nursing checks." He hesitated as though not wanting to finish. "His heart stopped on us twice in the first few days he was here. The crash cart nearly didn't make it up here in time."  
  
"What else?" Saint John asked, knowing there was more.  
  
"There's rudimentary surveillance on the room -- a guard that takes 'coffee breaks.' Once, I walked in without checking at the desk to find a nurse about to give him an injection."  
  
"So?"  
  
He shook his head. "I know every nurse assigned here and she wasn't one of them. When I confronted her, she made some excuse and left. I never saw her again. I'm still wondering how she got past the guard and who she worked for."  
  
"What was in that hypodermic?" Hawke asked, going cold again.  
  
The man shrugged. "I never found out but whatever it was, it wasn't on your boy's charts."  
  
Your boy ... my boy, Saint John reflected with a thrill. My kid brother. And I'd better start taking better care of him. He glanced down the corridor suspiciously, almost expecting a DNS spook to emerge from every crevice. "This isn't a safe place for him," he said flatly.  
  
"It's not even a good place for him," the doctor agreed, releasing his wrist and resuming a professional demeanor. "If he doesn't receive better care than we're allowed to give him -- something beyond blood expanders, antibiotics that don't work, and enough painkillers to keep him from screaming the other patients awake -- he'll be dead in seventy-two hours ... which seems to be what someone is counting on."  
  
"Can he be moved?" Saint John asked.  
  
Melloni shrugged. "He shouldn't be moved. It's been long enough for his ribs to be mending but the internal injuries...." He shook his head. "Moving him could kill him. But in my professional opinion, if he stays, he's dead anyway. If it was my brother, I know what I'd do ... providing you could move him past the ... government? ... surveillance."  
  
"Just watch me," the pilot mumbled, thanking Melloni with a curt nod and moving off, his brother's room number still ringing in his ears. The sterile hospital corridor passed in a blur of color and shapes, almost as if he was rushing down a long tunnel. For Saint John Hawk, that's precisely what it was -- a tunnel at the end of which waited the brother he hadn't seen in fifteen long years. Hearing was saturated with the sound of his boots thumping on the stone floor, their rhythm keeping counterpoint to the audible rush of blood in his ears. He picked his way past white uniformed humans, mind flying backward of its own accord to the time before Viet Nam and prisoner-of-war camps, before beatings and hunger and endless despair. They'd been a family: himself, Stringfellow, Dominic. Sometimes even Dom's niece Joanna Santini when she wasn't staying with other relatives. Even then, there had been something special about the relationship between his brother and himself. String had been so young when their parents died, so full of guilt and grief, that the elder brother had taken over raising him as much even as Dom, and known himself adored in return. The two had become inseparable. Until 'Nam.  
  
String. If only I'd known what you were doing to yourself before.  
  
One wide shoulder brushed against a high-piled linen cart being trolled down the hall, the sleeve of his black leather jacket catching. He freed himself hastily, acknowledging the nurse's apology with a curt nod. He entered the elevator and pushed the sixth floor button, moving on auto pilot. His attention was focussed not quite thirty years before, on himself at eight teaching the four year old Stringfellow how to use a bow and arrow. The bow and arrow had been a present from Dom. But Dom was....  
  
Something crashed, ripping Saint John from his reminisce and it was only then he realized that the elevator door stood invitingly open. He strode out, skirting a squatting orderly who was picking up pieces of scattered food. Some peripheral sense told him he was being sized up by sharp eyes across the hall -- a swarthy man in a business suit. The big blond never broke his stride. The tunnel narrowed and he stopped, for here was the door. Just beyond this white washed barrier lay the badly injured man who was his brother.  
  
Saint John paused, hand on the cool steel and took a deep breath, then pushed it wide, stepping across the threshold and stopping in shock. String! His first impression was to wonder if he wasn't already too late; could anyone be so totally drained and still be alive? String always had healthy coloring. This man looks like a corpse. The skin was stretched tight across fine-boned features, the underlying color a frighteningly bloodless white. Twin spots of red rode on the high cheekbones, however, a fever that had burned for too long. The heart monitor beeped unnervingly in the silence of the isolated room, raking Saint John's nerves raw and making him clench his teeth against the scream that rose in his throat like bile. In a flash, Saint John compared the man lying there with a mental picture of an eighteen year old man-child, making automatic corrections for injury and finding little in the way of difference. The gold-brown hair was cropped short on the sides, though long enough on top to halo the boyish face. Looking closer, Saint John could see lines drawn around the eyes and mouth that hadn't been there fifteen years ago. Not age, he realized sadly. Heartache. My fault. All because of me. I should have been here.  
  
Most of the body was covered by a sheet, but the figure outlined was slender. That appearance could be deceptive for that slenderness hid a wiry strength that Saint John knew matched that in his own large frame. Bandages covered both arms and part of the right hand, and more were visible beneath the thin sheets. Broken bones, Saint John catalogued dully, internal injuries, concussion, shattered ankle, multiple burns, some of them third degree, infection. To the boy's left an I.V. bag hung, feeding clear fluid into his arm, and he was breathing quickly, obviously in pain. Someone should have checked him sooner, Saint John thought with irritation.  
  
The blue eyes were open, fixed in opium induced apathy on the distant ceiling, bright with fever and filled with despair. Anyone who had met the young man previously would have been astonished at the depth of emotion written there, emotion normally hidden behind an impassive mask. But Saint John was not astonished for this man was well known and long beloved -- this man was Saint John's brother.  
  
Despite the circumstance, Hawke held his breath with elation at the sight. For fifteen long years he'd held on to the memory of this boy, nurturing a single, all-consuming desire to bring the once-inseparable together again, wondering at the kind of man the boy had become. It had been a shock to find Dominic Santini gone; the thought that he might lose his brother too -- and just when they were finally together again -- was a knife twisting in his gut and a pain worse than all he had suffered at the hands of the Vietnamese.  
  
All this ran through his mind in the space of a single heartbeat. The other man turned his head, drawn by movement, listlessly incurious as to his visitor's identity. String squinted, obviously unable to see well, then disbelief blanked his features for a single instant before liquid sunshine lit his face, eyes welling over with the purest joy. No one bothered to tell him about me, Saint John realized angrily, his heart beating like a triphammer. It nearly stopped when he heard the whispered, "Saint John? Is that you?"  
  
His own face tight, Saint John crossed the short distance to the high hospital bed in four strides. "You bet, brother." Was that quavering voice really his? He swooped down on the bed, and String, breath catching in a sob, threw both arms around his neck, engulfing him in a weak but fervent hug. Saint John emitted a sigh of total contentment and gathered his brother in.  
  
Beginning to cry in earnest, String's fingers dug into the dark leather jacket, face pressed against the older man's neck. "There's so much I have to tell you," he babbled disjointedly.  
  
Saint John brushed his cheek on soft hair, keeping his grip gentle and having to fight the urge to squeeze the injured man even tighter. String ... brother. "I know. I know," he murmured soothingly, as afraid for his brother's life as he was happy to see him.  
  
He started to pull back but String clutched at him like a hysterical child, holding on for all he was worth, determined, it seemed, to confess the worst at once. "Dom...."  
  
"I know." Saint John forced steadiness into his voice, and eased away, drinking in his brother's face as though it were ambrosia, his own jaw clenched so tight it hurt. Little brother. He slid his right hand up under String's neck, stroking the soft hair there, cradling his head, the fever hot body warming his own terror chilled bones. Now I'm home, little brother. Now!  
  
Tears streaming down his cheeks, the younger man lightly touched Saint John's chest as though he still couldn't believe he was actually there. He continued to cry, intensity flooding his voice. "Don' let me die," he choked, unfocussed eyes glancing briefly at the ceiling.  
  
Die. Saint John swallowed hard, using his thumb to caress his brother's wet cheek. "You're not going to die," he stated with absolute conviction. "I won't let you."  
  
"I don't want to die in this ... place," String spat unheeding, the last word loaded with hatred and utter despair.  
  
No one's going to take you away from me now. He bent lower, forcing the fever bright, drug vague eyes to center on him. "You won't, String. I promise." Overcome with emotion, he lifted the younger man carefully, a few inches only, wrapping him in a powerful, protective embrace. "I promise."  
  
String put his arms back around Saint John's neck, crying uncontrollably, the imperfect restraint he'd maintained for years in tatters. Saint John cradled him gently, sighing deeply when he remembered a little boy twenty years ago grieving their dead parents in his brother's arms. Tears streamed down his own face, falling unheeded onto the pillow. "You're not going to die," he whispered against his brother's neck. "I've come too far to lose you now. I need you too badly. I need ... I need to come home."  
  
String only held on tighter, face buried against Saint John's jacket. "I don't care if I die. You're back! That's all that counts. But ... not here."  
  
The older man chuckled huskily, surreptitiously rubbing his cheek on the pillow before raising his head. Why was his face wet when his heart soared? "I care, little brother. The whole point of coming back was being with you again." He settled more comfortably on the edge of the bed, trying to strike a balance between hugging his brother tightly and avoiding doing any more damage to the abused body. String had no such deterrence; whatever pain it must have cost him, his arms around Saint John's neck were tight enough to hinder his breathing.  
  
And Saint John Hawke would not have changed that for the world.  
  
They sat holding each other for a long time, until String's crying had begun to slow and sheer exhaustion loosened his clasp. Saint John held him carefully all the while, speaking quietly to calm the hysteria. He was worried at the effects such a reaction could have on his brother's fragile health, even while his own heart was so full to bursting he was hardly coherent himself. "Okay now, kid?" he asked softly many minutes later, easing the younger man back onto the pillow.  
  
Blue eyes, darker than his own, stared back blearily, but there was grief there again and despair, the emotional see-saw tilting again. Drugs, Saint John recognized. String always hated drugs even in 'Nam, and now he's too doped to even see straight. Maybe they help the pain but can't the doctors see what's happening to him? String licked his cracked lips, blinking his eyes clear of the tears though it was obvious the drugs prevented him from seeing much. "He's gone," he said, more confession than statement. "Dom's dead. They ... they killed him. Helicopter...."  
  
Saint John shook him slightly, just enough to cut off the stumbling words. "I know," he managed, throat closing up. He was obliged to swallow before he went on. "They almost got you, too. And they're still out there."  
  
String's fingers closed convulsively on the other's sleeve, his face hardening. "They have to pay. Who ever they are, they have to pay for D- Dom. Like Gabrielle."  
  
Gabrielle? Later. "They'll pay. That's another promise." They would. Saint John Hawke knew this with every fiber of his being. There would be an accounting and soon, but first he had one more important task to take care of. He smoothed the tangled brown hair gently, affection filling his heart when String leaned into the touch, resting his cheek in Saint John's palm and staring up with the purest love shining in his eyes. Heartened by this gesture of trust, Saint John banished thoughts of revenge for the moment and allowed himself to revel in the sheer joy of being home and reunited with the last of his family. "Do you know how good it is to see you again?" he asked, using the sheet to wipe away the tear tracks on the other's face.  
  
Obviously, the feeling was mutual; String blinked at him, then a rare, open smile lifted his lips, sunlight penetrating the clouded eyes. "I knew you were still alive," he said, touching Saint John's wrist. "I knew if I kept pushing, they'd have to find you."  
  
Idly, Saint John wondered how many years of 'pushing' they were discussing and whether or not the boy ... Man, he reminded himself firmly. He's thirty-two ... or is he thirty-three yet? Thirty-four? I don't even know how old my own brother is any more. So far from seventeen. ... had done any of his own living in the meantime. From what Jo had said, very little. He cocked his head, a steady, barely audible whup-whup from above catching his attention. Right on time.  
  
Steadying himself, he turned back to his brother, who was also listening, albeit puzzledly. "Airwolf?" he asked muzzily, head falling back on the pillow, eyes closing. "You're going to take me home?"  
  
Saint John Hawke patted his shoulder. "Listen to me, String, the men who killed Dom are still out there. You're a target too; maybe even me."  
  
Fear widened the blue eyes again -- fear for Saint John. "You won't be safe here. You have to get out! The Firm...."  
  
No way I'm leaving here without you, Saint John thought grimly. "Do you trust them?" he interrupted, staring hard at the other.  
  
"Archangel...."  
  
"There's no angels in this game, kid," the elder brother stated, privately wondering who this Archangel was who could have gained his brother's faith like that and almost resenting it before he caught himself. "Some guy named Locke says he's the DNS liaison. Know him?"  
  
Stringfellow hesitated then shook his head. "We met once. He's one of their's."  
  
As opposed to ours, Saint John supplied. Fair enough. "Okay. It's just the two of us then." He jerked his thumb in the general direction of the helipad on the roof. "I used Airwolf's computers...."  
  
Blue eyes opened wide. "How did you get Airwolf?"  
  
"You gave it to Jo, remember?" Saint John returned, squeezing his brother's neck before releasing him. "To come after me. I also know what you did with it and why. Remind me to thank you properly some day."  
  
Color touched the younger man's pale cheeks, deepening the fever flush. "You're home," he murmured blissfully, again closing his eyes. "You're home."  
  
Doesn't mean I'm ever going to forget that you brought me out of purgatory. "The computers let me run a check on some old friends. Remember Marty Bergman?"  
  
String's light brows drew together. "No ... I.... Medic in 'Nam?"  
  
Saint John looked at his watch. Two minutes. "He's a doctor now. Runs a rehab clinic about two hours airtime from here, with a full surgical staff. We're taking you there where you can recover without the bad guys or the Firm taking pot shots at you."  
  
The younger man shook his head, consciousness obviously little more than a thread. "Saint John, I want to go home. Please?" He snatched again for Saint John's wrist, holding it feebly but desperately. "Please?"  
  
He was beginning to grow agitated, so Saint John leaned close again, now conscious of the passage of time. "You will go home again. I swear it." He ruffled his brother's hair and stood, stopping when his name was uttered as a low whimper.  
  
"Don't go!" String struggled to sit up, and not succeeding. He made it far enough though to drop the sheet down around his waist, revealing the bandages that swathed a section of his lower abdomen. The skin on either side was swollen and red, and there were more dressings on his back and side. The wires leading to the heart monitor pulled threateningly even as the shrill beep-beep increased its tempo. "Please!" he begged. "If you go, this will all be a dream again! You won't be real any more!"  
  
Saint John grabbed his wrist and shoulder, pressing firmly until the younger man subsided. If String pulled those monitor wires off, the alarm at the desk would scream like a stuck pig. "I won't leave you! Trust me, all right?"  
  
"But...."  
  
"I said, stay!" The younger man didn't relax, and Saint John took his face in both hands, tilting it up. "You just lie there and let me handle everything for once. You're going to need every drop of strength to do those two hours air time."  
  
He waited for the fearful nod before leaving the bed. Feeling his brother's eyes glued frantically on him, he crossed on cat's feet to the door and cracked it open, peeking through it and down the hall. A solitary nurse sat at the station several yards away, talking animatedly on the phone, another was just disappearing into a wardroom farther down. He waited until the down elevator appeared and a man stepped out, disreputably dressed in dirty jeans and a flannel shirt. A hat was pulled down low over blond curls but the figure was still identifiable as Mike Rivers. Saint John nodded to himself and returned to Stringfellow, who was watching him with desperate intensity.  
  
"We're leaving," he said, beginning to work on the tape securing the I.V. to String's left arm. "I've got a friend outside that'll give us the diversion we need to get past the guard." The tape came loose only after much struggling, and he unwrapped the gauze carefully until reaching the needle. The skin above was flame red and angry looking -- more burns -- but the needle itself came out easily leaving behind only a dab of blood which was easily ignored. Now that he was close by again, String watched him dreamily, infection, stress and narcotics having sapped whatever strength he'd started with.  
  
Allowing the I.V. line to drop carelessly to the floor where it began to dribble some clear fluid on the spotless tiles, Saint John next rummaged in the room's only closet, finding a blanket and returning to the bed. "It's a little chilly out," he explained, spreading it over String's body and tucking it under. "And we've got a long way to go. We can't risk a wheelchair; I'm going to have to carry you to the elevator. Can you put your arms around my neck?"  
  
The younger man glared. "I can walk," he returned sullenly. "You'd better back up your friend."  
  
Saint John actually had to smile. In that much pain and drugged practically unconscious, the kid obviously couldn't even sit much less walk, but that proud, independent spirit he remembered so well was still there, damaged and sedated into near oblivion perhaps, but far from crushed. "Maybe you can," he returned evenly, "but you're not going to." When String pushed his hand away, Saint John pushed back. "Are you going to waste time arguing or do as I say?" he demanded in the same tone that had ensured his stubborn brother's obedience when they were children.  
  
Stringfellow hesitated, searching Saint John's face. Then without a word he complied, putting his arms around Saint John's neck. His grip was weak, one arm falling limply as though the effort at holding on was too much. Saint John slipped his arms carefully under the blanket covered legs and back, fingers encountering a knee-high cast under the rough wool. Shattered ankle, he thought grimly. Not broken -- shattered. He lifted carefully until his brother was cradled in his arms. String stiffened at his touch, a low cry bitten off as soon as it emerged. "I know it hurts, kid," Saint John whispered. "but we can't get any more painkillers yet."  
  
"N-no more drugs," the younger man whimpered. "Let me die ... without any more drugs. ... But ... not here. Home."  
  
The imploring words cut Saint John like a knife, and he briefly dropped his lips to the sweat dampened hair below his chin. "You won't die, little brother. Not if I have anything to say about it."  
  
Saint John crossed to the door, flinching at the thought of the further damage this activity might be causing his brother -- the boy was already barely holding on and the hospital had obviously done little for him. But if he was to going to get the kid to safety there was no time for hesitance; already voices were raised from the opposite end of the hall, Mike's and a woman's, probably one of the nurses. The sound of feet joined the fracas and Saint John could see through the opened door the agent assigned this room run past, one hand reaching into his jacket as Rivers raised his voice in a yell. The din was so overwhelming that the alarm from the heart monitor could barely be heard at all. The elder Hawke tightened his arms protectively, pulling his brother even closer against his chest. "Only as far as the roof," he whispered encouragingly, pushing the door open with his toe.  
  
A glance confirmed that the agent and both nurses were now crowded around the disreputably dressed Rivers, all yelling and gesticulating wildly. Saint John caught the words "Whiskey," and "Detox," but didn't wait to hear any more; if he'd learned anything about the Air Force hotshot it was that Mike Rivers' brashness approached the infinite on demand. Treading carefully, Stringfellow's not-overwhelming weight slowing him not at all, he made his way quietly but quickly down the corridor. Thanks to Rivers the elevator was waiting; it closed with a pneumatic whoosh, rising rapidly to the roof, and it was only then that Saint John remembered to breathe again.  
  
"Th-they'll know it was you," String gasped, face buried in the front of the black leather jacket.  
  
Hawke laughed softly, the weight of his brother's body resting easily in his arms. "As next of kin I don't have a right to check my own kid brother out of the hospital? Besides...."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"We have Airwolf."  
  
String nodded, his hair just brushing Saint John's chin. "The Lady's ... covered for us before."  
  
"The Lady?" Appropriate name. The elevator opened and Saint John stepped out into the cool night air. The whup-whup was loud now, the backwash of the spinning blades blowing his bronze hair back and making String shiver. There was a loud crash from the right, the emergency exit door was thrown violently open and Mike Rivers emerged at a dead run.  
  
"They-they're looking for us!" he panted, doffing hat and coat as he ran. "We have to get out of here."  
  
"Help me get him into the chopper," Hawke called, crossing the twenty paces to the chopper at a trot. Rivers popped the passenger's side cockpit door then turned and physically lifted Stringfellow away, holding him until Saint John climbed inside. Saint John settled back against the rear wall and stretched his legs out more or less straight. It was a tight squeeze; even with the rear passenger's seat folded up and the co-pilot's seat removed, he had to twist slightly to avoid the console bank. Two hours in this position would be no joke; unfortunately, it couldn't be helped. String would never survive that long strapped upright. Arranging himself as best he could, he received his brother's limp form into his lap, letting the fair head loll back against his chest.  
  
More figures appeared at the open hospital door, one of them waving a gun. "Let's go!" he yelled, even as Rivers leaped inside and slid the door shut. Two shots rang out, expending themselves harmlessly against the heavy armor plating, then the helicopter shuddered and lifted, leaving behind hospital and agent alike.  
  
Rivers guided the ship in a gentle upward curve, movements precise and designed to not jar the injured man. "There's a blanket under the seat, Hawke. Wrap that baby brother of yours up good; it's gonna be a long flight."  
  
"They'll be coming after us," Saint John warned, loosing String with one hand and reaching under the seat for the heavy wool blanket. Lax fingers moved then, feeling for his sleeve. "It's okay, String," he murmured. "I'm still here.  
  
The pilot patted the console with a laugh. "They won't catch us in this baby. Consider yourselves safe."  
  
"Safe," Saint John echoed, wrapping the blanket around his brother. At first he thought String was unconscious, though his grip on Saint John's sleeve had not loosened. Then he became aware of the low, distressed murmur.  
  
"They took it," Stringfellow muttered fretfully, tugging at the black leather. "We have to go back."  
  
Saint John tilted his head closer, running his fingers through his brother's hair in what he hoped was a calming gesture. "Took what, String?"  
  
With what seemed to be an enormous expenditure of strength he did not have, Stringfellow lifted his right wrist. "Your bracelet."  
  
"My bracelet?" Saint John echoed, shooting a puzzled look at Rivers. He'd never been one for jewelry and had never worn a bracelet in his life.  
  
The younger pilot shrugged. "He probably means an MIA bracelet. A lot of people wore one engraved with the name of a missing friend or relative. So they wouldn't forget."  
  
God himself knows you never forgot, kid, Saint John thought, touched. Neither will I. "Don't worry about it, String," he told the distressed young man he held. "You don't need it anymore." Stringfellow relaxed against him, and he wrapped both arms around the limp form, slumping wearily back against the fuselage. The warmth of his brother's fevered body was a barrier against the chill, and he rocked it gently, continuing to stroke the soft hair with one hand. I'm home! he thought wildly, eyes stinging again. Home. Fear for his brother muted but couldn't crowd out the joy. Maybe I am home, he thought, closing his eyes. But if you don't make it, String, it's not going to mean a thing.  
  
*** 


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
The Valley of the Gods was aptly named. Located on a mesa seven thousand feet above sea level, the perpetually snow-covered plane was as unreachable as heaven itself. Great fingers of stone rose from the barren earth, all that remained of ancient volcanic crests after millennia of erosion.  
  
Now two months after the incident at the hospital, the big Sikorsky flew a zig-zag path over and between peaks, then dropped to nearly ground level, flitting easily into a natural cavern one hundred feet tall and nearly that as wide. It came to rest on hard-packed earth, out of sight of prying eyes. The little group of five disembarked the Santini Air copter and made their way down a narrow tunnel to the large central chamber deep inside.  
  
"What's all this?" Stringfellow demanded, the continuous throbbing of his damaged ankle momentarily forgotten. He gazed with amazement at the multiple banks of computers and equipment that littered the wall and floor space, once bare rock transformed into a virtual control room. Anger tightened his gut at the thought of outsiders invading this very special place. "Who else was here?"  
  
The last to emerge, Locke brushed past the astonished man, tossing him a glance as he went by. "Jo ferried in the computer hardware not long after she discovered the Lair. It was provided by our Far East connection. I think you know him -- man by the name of Michael."  
  
"I don't like strangers in here," Hawke growled, two years worth of protecting his investment kicking into play.  
  
The statement drew a sardonic smirk from Rivers, whereas Locke stiffened in his tracks. "I completed installation of the communications equipment and final programming four weeks ago. And in case you've forgotten, Mr. Hawke," he continued brusquely, "your arrangement with the Company ended when we broke your brother out of that prison camp. Airwolf is ours once more."  
  
Jo, already hunched over a table behind the main console, looked up with a friendly smile. "We like to think of it as community property. Jason buys the fuel, we get to play with the toys."  
  
"My favorite toy," Mike added, handing her some navigational charts from a rack. "Keep expecting one in my Christmas stocking, but so far...."  
  
"She's not a toy," Hawke whispered under his breath, irrationally offended by the others' cavalier attitude. "She's a Lady." He felt a prickle on his neck and turned to meet Saint John's penetrating gaze full upon him.  
  
"We haven't changed Airwolf at all," the older man said softly. "She's just like you and Dom left her."  
  
"She'd better be," he snapped, actually afraid to look at the gleaming black object sitting in the precise center of the lighted landing pad. Dominic Santini. The name brought a surge of emotion that nearly broke through the walls Hawke was trying so fervently to maintain. Show nothing, he'd told himself since he was ten and mourning his lost parents. Feel nothing and don't let anyone know you're vulnerable.  
  
He absorbed the hurt, tucking it inside where it would gnaw but not show, schooling his face into neutrality. Gabrielle had gotten close and Gabrielle had died. Dom was gone. And Saint John? He risked another glance up at his brother's face to find the older man regarding him steadily with none of the anger he'd expected at the rebuff. Stringfellow knew then his brother did understand. Why should I be surprised? he thought, warmth muting a particle of the fear he couldn't dispel. Saint John always had. No one else ever understood ... except Dom. But Dom is....  
  
Budding confidence evaporating again, he braced his shoulders, spun on his heel and circumnavigated the metal railing that enclosed the death machine code named Airwolf. His jaw tightened as he approached; she was as beautiful as he remembered, the obsidian skin and white belly reminding him of a killer whale, the sleek streamlining that of the American eagle he loved. He stopped inches from the craft, breath drawn away by her closeness. Had it only been two months since he'd last seen her? Two months of an emptiness only partially filled by the completion of his contract with the Firm. Saint John was back, but Stringfellow was earthbound; with Airwolf he could again soar like the creature he was named after.  
  
He raised a hand to touch the smooth metal, surprised to see it shaking. He could see his image in the polished armor plate, distorted lengthwise but still distinct enough to reveal a slim, youthful man with haunted eyes and a stern mouth. "Hello, Lady," he whispered, recognizing the loneliness of that solitary reflection. The surface rippled, another figure appearing, larger, more solidly built, and for a moment he saw Dominic Santini, the image so achingly familiar that he bit his lip. Then Dominic was gone and a different shape resolved, every bit as welcome. "I guess Locke is right," he said a little louder. "She did her job. She got you home."  
  
"It wasn't only Airwolf that got me home," Saint John said from just behind his right shoulder. "You were the one that didn't give up, little brother."  
  
Stringfellow thought back to his last hospital stay and knew the statement for the untruth it was. He had given up -- on Saint John, on himself ... on life. If it hadn't been for Dom, he might have given up on the latter a long time before. "They wanted the Lady," he confessed, caressing the metal skin with real reverence. "All we had to do was hang on to her until they found you."  
  
The other laughed, an amiable rumble deep in his throat. "Considering the lack of leisure I've had the last two months, I know holding on to her wasn't all you had to do." He shifted, stepping a little closer until his left shoulder brushed Stringfellow's right. "The Lady. Appropriate."  
  
Dominic. "Th-that was Dom's name for her," Stringfellow choked, the hurt- filled niche in his heart swelling to constrict his throat. "He said ... she needed to be handled like a...."  
  
"Like a Lady," Saint John finished just as quietly. "It sounds like something he'd say if he were here."  
  
Like something Dom would say if he were here. "He should be here," Stringfellow snarled, startling himself and unable to stop. Rage and heartache overflowed, washing him in a red wave, a tsunami that returned to drown him again and again without warning. "He should be here," he repeated, slamming his open palm against the helicopter's flank. "I shouldn't have had to trade him for you the way I had to trade you in 'Nam."  
  
Pain coursed up his right arm, returning some measure of control, just enough to catch the emotions up in a knot. He squeezed his eyes shut even as a warm hand descended on his shoulder, that simple contact offering another single thread of comfort ... and fear. If he gets close he's going to die, too, Hawke thought wildly, wanting to retreat yet not finding it in himself to pull away from his brother. Again.  
  
With the absence of vision, memories returned, this time centering around Saint John's reappearance in his life. Those long weeks at Marty Bergman's clinic were vague at first, little but a blur of confusion and pain. The injuries had been every bit as extensive as that doctor -- Melloni? -- had suspected; indeed, the stress of being transported by air had sent Stringfellow into shock one hour into the flight. It had taken the medical staff twenty-four hours to restabilize him, only to nearly loose him again to the infection that attacked his weakened body and resisted all efforts of the antibiotics to clear up.  
  
As Hawke had found out later, Marty, a capable surgeon as well as diagnostician, had taken him personally under his care, fighting for the young man's life every step of the way. Time had passed in a haze, with only impressions of his brother's presence at irregular intervals, talking to him, soothing when the pain was too much, encouraging when something had to be borne. Hawke had assumed it all a dream and mourned even as he welcomed the barely seen presence.  
  
Clarity in full began to return during the third week. He'd opened his eyes to find his mind remarkably clear and his body relatively pain free for the first time in ... he couldn't remember. The sun streamed in the large window, silhouetting a husky shape against the glass. The man was big -- bigger than Stringfellow -- and stood looking out at the grounds, head thrown back and up to the sky. Bronze hair gleamed under golden rays, the brown bomber jacket hanging open from wide shoulders and a large-boned frame. Could it be...? Saint John?  
  
As it did even now sometimes, disbelief had nibbled at String's gut, the fear that this would turn out to be nothing more than a dream as it had been so often for so many years. With that doubt came a crushing grief of loss, and the weary renewal of his vow to not give up the hunt to find his brother alive or dead. But I don't think I can do it any more. There's nothing left of me. Oh, Saint John ... I'm sorry.  
  
"Saint John." The name was breathed softly but the maybe-image must have had the ears of a jungle beast so quickly did he turn. Long legs carried the man closer, the solid weight causing the bed to dip on one side. Blue- gray eyes looked back into Stringfellow's own, a particular joy writing itself in the long, solemn features as the man realized he was awake.  
  
"It's about time you woke up, little brother." Saint John's murmur carried a wave of happiness, the hand he rested on String's forehead cool like water and calloused by toil. "I've been waiting a long time to talk to you."  
  
Little brother. Saint John always called me that. Only Saint John. And for the first time in fifteen years, Stringfellow Hawke allowed himself the luxury of full belief.  
  
All this passed behind Stringfellow's lids in the few seconds it took him to regain his control. Saint John's hand had not left his shoulder, and String felt disinclined to move away. Both highly reserved and private men had felt a need for some form of contact these several weeks -- contact Saint John had been denied by the Vietnamese and Stringfellow had denied himself. After a lifetime of struggling to feel nothing, Stringfellow found his carefully constructed walls more battered then ever and crumbling in places he could no longer shore up. He didn't understand it; Dominic would have.  
  
Struggling vainly to push thoughts of Dom out of his mind, he forced open his eyes, finding himself face to face with the dark mirror image of the older Hawke. Saint John's strong features were creased by a load of sadness Hawke had not seen since he was ten and they were bidding good-bye to their parents at the funeral. The normal reserve of the man cracked briefly, the internal struggle for command palpable. It was only then that Stringfellow, so cocooned in his own private pain, remembered that Dominic had been a father to Saint John, too.  
  
Hawke remembered the clinic, and confusion and crying his grief out in Saint John's arms. That had happened twice, when the painkillers had diminished control and String had not been strong enough to close everything away as he always did, tucking the pain into a small niche in his heart as Saint John himself had always done. Saint John had held him through it, for all that he must have been aching himself. There in that niche, Dominic Santini would live forever and be mourned forever. In his heart -- and Saint John's.  
  
"I'm sorry," he blurted, half turning until he could look up at his brother. "I know ... Dom meant something to you, too."  
  
The bigger man took a deep breath and drew himself erect, a muscle leaping in his jaw and sadness written in his eyes; beyond that, his expression was closed. "I would have liked to see him again," he admitted, keeping his eyes locked on Airwolf. "While I was in the camps ... seeing you and him again were all that kept me from giving up. And now...."  
  
"I'm sorry." And he was, for Stringfellow would forever blame himself for Dom's death. The big Italian had saved his life a dozen times over on Firm missions, and Hawke hadn't been able to do the same in return. "I'm sorry. It was me they were after and ... if I'd been faster...."  
  
His distress must have penetrated Saint John's own barriers for he shook himself and met his gaze. "If you couldn't save him," he said gently, "there was no one who could have." He shook String's shoulder. "Let it go, String; let him rest in peace."  
  
"I wish I could." He would have given his remaining years to rest peacefully -- just one night without ghosts. Limbo was full of ghosts, it seemed, and it was to Limbo he was forever damned. With Saint John back he had no goal; without Dominic, no peace. For a single moment he envied the deceased Dominic Santini very much.  
  
They stood in silence while Stringfellow's treacherous brain persisted in dredging up scenes from the last two years, all of them containing an aging, over-weight Italian with a hearty laugh and large heart. Their first training flight ... the mission against the Russian MIGs ... Dom's long lost love that nearly came between them.... "He wished you'd studied italian," String said dreamily, lost in a nearly forgotten snippet from Libya.  
  
Saint John scratched his long nose, a trace of amusement crinkling the skin around his eyes. "Italian? He always used to nag us about picking it up. Neither of us were interested, though he and Jo used to chatter for hours in it."  
  
Feet shuffled on the dirt floor, and Stringfellow stiffened at the interruption. Saint John's arm tightened, pulling him close for a brief instant. He gave him a squeeze and released him, the two stepping apart and turning to meet the newcomer.  
  
"String, except for the fact that you could use a little meat on your bones," Jo greeted them, a warm smile lifting her pink lips, "you're looking pretty good to me. Nice to have you back in one piece." Hawke smiled slightly at the sentiment but said nothing. Whether it was nice or not, he didn't know yet. "How long were you in the hospital?"  
  
"Not a hospital," Stringfellow Hawke told her, resting his weight on his uninjured ankle, still healing bones aching again. "A rehab clinic in Arizona. I was there until two weeks ago."  
  
"Oh, String." Jo's face filled with sympathy. "Six weeks in the hospital? I really wish you had let us know. You shouldn't have had to go through all that by yourself."  
  
"Saint John was there whenever he could be," Stringfellow returned simply, his tone implying that that was enough -- and such it had been.  
  
She raised her eyes, seeking the elder Hawke's, and there was revelation in them. "That explains one mystery. We always wondered what you were up to whenever you disappeared to meditate. You were with String, weren't you?"  
  
"Somebody had to be," Saint John answered, slapping his brother's arm with friendly affection.  
  
Jo puffed out her cheeks, widening her gaze to include them both. "I have to admit it's good to see you two together again. I got tired of having to trek up that stupid mountain any time I needed to see String."  
  
Saint John stared at him in mock horror, though Hawke tensed at the considering look in his face. "You didn't spend all your time up there with that dog?"  
  
"Of course not," Hawke protested, slightly embarrassed.  
  
Jo put her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. "Don't listen to a word, Saint John. The only time anyone ever saw him off that stupid mountain was when Uncle Dom or Caitlin needed help on a shoot. Your brother does a real good impression of a hermit."  
  
Caitlin's name niggled another pang of guilt. What's one more regret? Hawke asked himself philosophically. "Jo, have you been in touch with Cait ... Miss O'Shaunessey? She worked for Dom for some time."  
  
The woman nodded. "Actually, she got in touch with me. Archangel...." She stopped, making a face. "All these silly code names. Anyway, Archangel told her about the notes you were getting and what was going on, so she contacted me at Uncle Dom's house to find out about Airwolf. She said she was being watched too closely to help out herself but she'd help any way she could." She smiled suddenly, waving one hand at the rock walls. "How did you think I found out where this place was, anyway? It's not like you were in any condition to draw me a map, after all."  
  
He hadn't thought of that.  
  
Saint John slipped his arms out of his leather jacket, then slung it over one shoulder. "Caitlin's the redhead I met at Dom's funeral, isn't she?" he asked, retucking his shirt into his jeans. "She said she was signing on with the California Highway Patrol for awhile. Still flying choppers."  
  
Hawke bit his lip, questioning gaze centered on Jo. "You didn't keep her on with Santini Air?"  
  
She looked uncomfortable at that. "I offered, but she said there were too many memories. Even Michael tried to talk her into keeping on with Airwolf but she started crying and...." Jo spread both hands. "Besides, Santini Air doesn't have enough work for the pilots we've got! We haven't been doing any of the movie flying you and Dom did; after the ... accident, all of the contracts went up for renegotiation, and I'm no stunt pilot. Besides, they all asked for you when they heard about Uncle Dom, and didn't want to deal." She encompassed Saint John and Mike, who was somewhere out of sight. "These guys have been too busy with Airwolf for the business to kick in, so we've pretty well stuck to charters and flying lessons to make ends meet." She stopped. "It's your fault anyway, you know."  
  
"My fault?" Hawke echoed, surprised out of his mask. "What did I do?"  
  
She regarded him steadily for a moment, then shook her head. "You really don't know, do you?" She tossed a look in Saint John's direction. "Never told him?"  
  
"I was going to get around to it," the big blond replied mildly.  
  
"Tell me what?" Hawke demanded, hating to be left in the dark about anything.  
  
The woman smiled grimly. "That Uncle Dom left you Santini Air and everything in it. I only took it over because everyone thought you were dead."  
  
Hawke blinked, speechless. "Dom did what?" he asked, gaping stupidly. "He couldn't have."  
  
"I've got a piece of paper home telling me different," she retorted, looking remarkably unindignant. "All you need to do is decide to take it up again."  
  
"How 'bout it, String?" Saint John asked, punching him lightly on the arm. "Want to be an entrepreneur?"  
  
Stringfellow looked from one to the other, wondering what they found so amusing. "No, thanks. You keep the company. I'll keep my mountain."  
  
"Somehow I thought you'd say that," Jo returned wryly. "Just remember it's still yours if you ever want it back. Jason has the disk up and running," she went on, gesturing to where the black man sat at one of the many computer terminals littering the cave. "We've got a satellite photo of Casa del Suerte and a layout of the inside." She shook her head, blonde hair bobbing against her neck. "It doesn't show a single weapon anywhere within a six mile radius. I wonder if Marella could have gotten her facts mixed up."  
  
"Marella never gets her facts mixed up." Stringfellow spoke from old experience, having dealt with the efficient female agent many times in the past. "If she says there's a Haversham defense perimeter, you can expect it."  
  
Jo shifted her feet nervously. "Will any of the weapons be manned? Or is it all computerized? I've never flown through an artillery barrage before."  
  
"If we do our job right ..." Saint John leaned comfortably against Airwolf and crossed his arms; his biceps bulged out, the fruitage of many years of back-breaking physical labor. "... you won't have to. The Lady will knock out the hardware; you should have a clear way in and out."  
  
Jo shuddered. "I hope so." She made to say something else, breaking off when Mike Rivers approached, carrying some terrain charts.  
  
"Hope hard, schweethard," Rivers greeted her with a lopsided smile. "It's cheap."  
  
Saint John chuckled. "Your Bogie stinks, Mike. I think you should stick to Cagney."  
  
Rivers made a face. "Same to you, you dirty rat. Here." He shoved the charts into Saint John's hands. "You might want to do a little homework before you hit the wild blue yonder." He cocked his head at Hawke, who looked calmly back, feeling oddly left out by the cheerful banter between this man and his brother. "You're closest to my size. You can borrow one of my flight suits."  
  
"Got my own," Hawke murmured, brushing past the man and heading for a metal trunk he saw in the corner, Air Force Major Rivers' taunt of, "Army!" flowing past like water. It opened at a touch, revealing four flight suits and two pairs of boots, sized for himself and Santini. He ran a finger across the tough gray material, then pulled out a jumpsuit bearing the name Hawke neatly stitched over the left breast. Behind him he could hear the other three chatting amiably, the conversation shifting when Locke joined them. It took little effort to tune them out; they were outsiders who didn't belong here. This was his place. And Dom's. And Airwolf's.  
  
Quickly he donned the flightsuit, then, considering briefly, unsnapped the leg brace and put on his boots. Running a hand through his light brown hair he strode back across the cave toward his goal. Four jaws dropped at the sight. "Where do you think you're going?" Locke challenged, stepping forward to block the way.  
  
Hawke stopped, blue eyes glittering like sapphires. "If it's any of your business," he said coldly, "I'm taking her up. As Rivers pointed out, I can use the practice."  
  
Locke flared and Hawke braced himself, ready to take on the agent or anyone else who tried to keep him from Airwolf. Tension held, then snapped when the black man stepped back, audibly grinding his teeth. "You won't be able to get in," he gritted with some degree of smugness. "We changed all the security codes."  
  
Stringfellow ignored him. He circled the black flying weapon to the right- side door, his fingers playing lightly across the tiny, multi-colored panel inset. There was a hiss of escaping air and the door clicked open."  
  
"How did you do that?" Locke demanded, gaping. "I personally purged all access codes before entering the new ones."  
  
Feeling that unworthy of a reply, Stringfellow climbed into the seat and donned his helmet.  
  
"You want a co-pilot?" Saint John called, barring the door with one hand.  
  
Stringfellow spared him a bare glance. "No." Saint John hesitated, nodded and slid the door shut.  
  
"Try not to scratch the paint," Rivers called as a parting shot.  
  
Hawke had no trouble ignoring him. He climbed into the pilot's seat, ran a quick instrument check and began take-off sequence. Ninety seconds later he pulled back on the joystick, nosing Airwolf up into the clear, open sky.  
  
***  
With Stringfellow Hawke gone in Airwolf and leaving no estimated time of return, the remaining four members of the team finished what preparations they were able for the mission, then took the Santini chopper back to Van Nuys. According to Marella's instructions, Jason Locke and Mike Rivers were dropped off at the airfield where their own transportation to Mexico awaited, then, by mutual decision, Jo and Saint John returned to the mountain cabin to await the reappearance of their missing member. They arrived to find Marella, wearing one of Stringfellow's shirts and little else, on the couch facing a neat fire. She cradled a steaming cup, while Tet sprawled comfortably at her feet.  
  
"Some people know how to live," Saint John said, allowing Jo to precede him through the door, then shutting it tight against the evening chill. "It must be thirty degrees out there already."  
  
Marella smiled lazily. "Blame your brother. This place always has this effect on me. I'm actually going to enjoy being here for the next twenty- four hours." She stretched her legs out straight, wiggling her bare toes, then scowled and moved them over when Tet licked her foot. "Sort of."  
  
Jo pulled off her jacket and hung it on a peg by the door, sniffing the air appreciatively. "I hope there's still some of that coffee left. It smells dreamy."  
  
"Full pot on the stove."  
  
"Want some, Saint John?" the blonde asked, heading into the little kitchenette off to the left.  
  
He nodded and joined the agent on the couch, stripping off his own jacket and tossing it into a corner. "We decided this would be the best place to hole up for the night. Jo will be leaving before dawn for the airstrip; if necessary, she can drop me at the Lair to rendezvous with String."  
  
"So long as you're outside Casa del Suerte by one tomorrow afternoon," Marella said seriously, curling her legs under her. "Nothing must interfere with that."  
  
Saint John accepted a cup from the returning Jo Santini, who took the chair opposite. "We'll be there," he returned mildly. "My brother may be a little volatile, but he's pretty sound when he gives his word."  
  
Marella considered this between sips. "I've never doubted Stringfellow's word," she said thoughtfully. "But I must admit to some early skepticism about his abilities."  
  
"And now?" Saint John asked, staring at the fire.  
  
She hesitated, biting her lip. "Computer projections give me an eighty- five percent probability that recent events have seriously destabilized Stringfellow Hawke on four psychological levels, moderately so on another three. Firm analysts long ago evaluated him as being too emotionally damaged by loss to allow anyone to get too close to him, hence, the defensive nature. Add to that the stress of maintaining a search for you, Saint John, the death of Gabrielle AdeMuir, a woman he'd fallen in love with, Michael Coldsmith-Briggs and now Dominic Santini...." She shook her head. "I can name several Ph.d.'s who are chomping at the bit for the opportunity to put him on a couch and figure out what's keeping him going."  
  
"You sound like a textbook," Jo commented, dipping her pert nose into her cup.  
  
"Mr. Hawke is considered almost a textbook case," the pretty agent answered with cool detachment.  
  
Saint John turned his head until he could look at her with one eye. "My brother's got a lot of steel in him. He doesn't give up so easily."  
  
"How did he react when you told him Archangel was dead?" she shot back unexpectedly.  
  
That stopped him cold. "Betrayed," he said, groping to identify the indescribable emotion that had flashed in his brother when he'd heard the news. "Like Michael had turned on him."  
  
She raised sad brown eyes. "I'm ... glad I didn't have to be the one to tell him about Mr. Santini."  
  
"I don't even know String anymore." Jo kicked off her shoes and settled back with a sigh into the deep cushions, holding her cup in both hands. "He did a lot of changing after Viet Nam -- maybe even more than you," she told Saint John without looking up. "Except for some stunts with my Uncle Dom, I didn't know he was still flying. I know he used to be a test pilot or something but I never dreamed he was working for the Company."  
  
Saint John Hawke raised his coffee to his lips, draining half of it in a single gulp. "Viet Nam changes everybody," he stated harshly, lines around his eyes and mouth betraying a deep-rooted bitterness. "It was a thief; it robbed me of fifteen years of my life, and String of ... maybe more than that."  
  
"I have a question." Jo called from her chair. "If you have such doubts about Stringfellow being able to pull off this assignment, why are you going with him as a choice of pilots? I would have thought you'd prefer Saint John or Mike handling the Lady."  
  
Marella shivered, then tugged at an afghan sitting folded at one end of the couch. When it didn't move, she gave Saint John a light kick. "Move it or lose it," she offered amiably, draping it around her shoulders once it was free. She gave Jo a smile, a flash of white teeth by the light of the fire. "Frankly, Miss Santini, I didn't realize I had a say in deciding who was going to be piloting Airwolf. That decision was made without my input, you'll recall."  
  
"You backed him," Jo pointed out, leaning her head back.  
  
Marella tipped her chin in acknowledgement. "Stringfellow's major strength as a pilot is to be able to divorce himself from anything except the mission at hand. As long as he's flying, nothing else exists except his craft. I was of the opinion emotion would play no role while he was penetrating Mejindas' defenses. My only concern was that he would display a disregard for his own life without Mr. Santini to rein him in; recklessness has been an issue in the past."  
  
"Not when lives are at stake," Hawke stated flatly, though there was a hint of a question in his eyes.  
  
Marella nodded. "My evaluation precisely. Despite being far less hardened than he'd like everyone to believe -- and far too sensitive for the type of missions we specialize in -- your brother would never risk an innocent human life. And Michael never doubted him at all." She waved her cup vaguely at their surroundings, then placed it carefully on the floor. "It's also helped that he's got a refuge here. This place is lonely but the peace must be healing."  
  
Saint John followed her gesture with his eyes, from blazing hearth to the rare and expensive paintings covering the walls. "He always loved this place -- we both did, even after Mom and Dad's accident."  
  
Picking up her ears at that, the black agent fixed him with an inquiring gaze. "I read about that in his file. Stringfellow nearly died in that same incident, didn't he?"  
  
Rather than answering, Hawke handed her his nearly empty cup and rose, unbuttoning his flannel workshirt. "I think I'll go wash up."  
  
Marella stared ruefully at his departing back, waiting until his footsteps had disappeared into the bathroom before sighing loudly. "I guess I must have touched on a nerve. I didn't think it would still be a taboo subject after almost a quarter of a century."  
  
Lids beginning to droop to half-mast, Jo chuckled softly. "They've always been like that -- the both of them, reserved like their father." She rested her coffee on her thigh and centered an unfocussed gaze at the ceiling. "I remember when their parents died. I was staying with Uncle Dom for the summer, and we flew right up to the cabin. Saint John and String were stuck together like Siamese twins; it was like no one in the world existed except them." She sighed. "I didn't take too kindly to them staring at me every time I tried to talk to them. I even hit String for it once."  
  
"What did he do?" Marella asked, smiling.  
  
Jo shrugged. "Nothing. He just walked away, which made me even madder. It took Uncle Dom a long time to get through to them, but then, Uncle Dom had the touch."  
  
"He certainly kept Stringfellow human all those years," the agent returned thoughtfully. "I wonder if Saint John is going to be able to do the same?"  
  
To this there was no answer. A long silence fell between the two women, Marella contemplating the fire and Jo frankly dozing in her chair. This lasted until Hawke returned from the washroom, dark bronze hair damp, legs showing beneath his shorter brother's terry robe. Tet's tail thumped lethargically at his appearance then went quiet.  
  
"Shhhh." Marella greeted him with a finger to her lips, using that same hand to point to Jo. "She fell asleep about twenty minutes ago."  
  
"She has all the right instincts," the big blond returned easily, stoic mask now firmly in place. "Bed or couch?"  
  
Marella snuggled down further in place. "Couch. I doubt Stringfellow would take kindly to finding me in his bed when he gets back."  
  
"My brother hasn't changed that much," Hawke chuckled, running a handtowel through his hair. When she didn't return the smile, he frowned. "What is it?"  
  
She hesitated, pulling the afghan a little tighter around her shoulders. "Don't rely on that, Mr. Hawke, not completely. It's been a very long fifteen years, and these last two months can't have helped."  
  
His frown deepened, adding years to his still youthful features. "Why are you saying this, Marella? Are you trying to make me doubt String?"  
  
She shook her head definitely. "No. But Michael's life may depend on your being aware of just who you're flying with."  
  
"I'll be flying with my brother," Saint John snapped back. "That's all I need to know." He headed for the stairs, taking the towel with him. "I'll see you in the morning."  
  
"So long as you see me the day after," she murmured too low for anyone to hear.  
  
*** 


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
He was running -- heart pounding, fists pumping, full out running. The sounds of pursuit drew closer, from the flank this time rather than behind. Lungs bursting, he entered the clearing, automatically choosing the tree line rather than the path, knowing the paths were invariably booby-trapped. He glanced around wildly, seeking shelter -- escape! -- finding little save the burned vines of a recently napalmed jungle. The tattered rags were all that was left of the cotton pants some villager with a heart had thrown at him a year ago; his feet had been long bare, in summer or winter. Confusion reigned most of the time; lack of food or rest made it hard to concentrate and only the primitive medicines of the country folk prevented the parasites he carried from taking him away.  
  
But still he survived -- survived to fight, to escape. He had to survive -- he had someone home waiting for him.  
  
He ran again, bushes stinging his bare skin, calloused feet slapping the earth.  
  
A river. Make it. Make it to the river. They can't track you in the water. Make--  
  
Something hit him between the shoulder blades and he went down hard, something else smacked him in the head. ... Darkness ... Light again. Looking up into a grinning face, yellow skin stretched tight over the skull. "Again?" the apparition said in stilted french. "Again you try to escape us and again we catch you. When will you learn? Is ten years not enough for you?"  
  
"A hundred years won't be enough!" he spat back in english, grunting when ungentle hands pulled him to his feet. "One day I will go home. I have to. String doesn't know I'm alive."  
  
The Laotian Colonel shook his head sadly. "Your child of a brother has long forgotten you, Captain Hawke. He no longer cares whether you are alive or dead."  
  
"String would never give up on me," Saint John Hawke grunted, the defiance for his own sake rather than the other's, even as the first fist sank painfully into his stomach. "That's why I ... have to go ... home...."  
  
Saint John woke with a jerk. He sat bolt upright in bed, covered with sweat and still feeling the punishing blows inflicted as repayment for his escape attempt. He blinked and ran a hand across his face, staring around in the dark and wondering where he was. Something glowed by his hand and he focussed on it, recognizing it for a clock, the hands standing at two hours before dawn. He looked to right and left, only gradually coming to awareness of his surroundings. Nightbirds chattered in the distance but there was no insect noise, and that in itself was puzzling. There was always insect noise in the swamps, a buzzing, screeching cacophony that robbed sleep from all but the totally exhausted. He then became aware that he was sandwiched between a warm woolen blanket and clean sheets. He touched the soft nap of the terry robe he still wore, and welcome memory returned in a rush. This wasn't the slave camp any longer -- it wasn't even Southeast Asia. This was California, his brother's house and bed. Saint John Hawke was home.  
  
Joy filled him at the thought as it always did and he opened his eyes wider, gazing at the distant timbers of the ceiling, barely visible with the light from the window. He let his gaze trail around the room, the log walls, the scattered paintings, the antique maple bureau in one corner. Sparse furnishings but comfortable and unchanged since the day his grandfather had passed away. String had kept everything exactly as it was, and for that, Saint John was grateful.  
  
Knowing that further attempts at sleep this night would be futile, he padded down the stairs, silent in bare feet, and paused by the window to look out at the stars. Open air. Freedom. A taste he'd never expected to savor again. The bitterness remained, of course -- fifteen years of abuse and mistreatment and humiliation don't vanish in two months ... or two years. Fifteen years out of his life. Fifteen years his brother had spent hurting alone.  
  
He strolled back into the living room proper, giving Marella and Jo a cursory glance as he passed; they still slept the sleep of the righteous. Last night's fire still burned, and he stopped by the hearth to warm himself -- the high country grew cold at night. Several photos sat on the mantle and he chose one at random, turning it until he could see it by the ruby embers. It showed three men, himself, String and another: Dominic Santini. So String hadn't been completely alone, not so long as there was a single beat of Dominic's large heart. Hawke breathed a silent thanks to the old pilot for watching over his brother, the ache of knowing he'd never see the man again assaiing him briefly before he could banish the hurt. This is no time to wallow, he reminded himself firmly, nevertheless heaving a final sigh. We have a mission today. Wonder where String is?  
  
He put on a fresh pot of coffee then shook the women awake, taking the time while Marella fixed eggs and toast, to review the hard-copy terrain charts, committing the surrounding layout of the village of Pindarte to memory. He discussed it with Jo over breakfast, Marella adding snippets on 'safe' radio frequencies and local rumor.  
  
"You know what you're to do?" Marella asked as Jo prepared to depart. "The directions for Joshua Field were on the ROM disk. The Huey is fueled and pre-flighted. All you have to do is start the engines."  
  
Jo patted her jacket pocket. "Got my orders right here, and the coordinates for my rendezvous. You know, I could just fly down there with Saint John and String, and save Santini Air some chopper fuel."  
  
Marella shook her head. "Sorry. The Army is holding maneuvers in that area all day and I don't want anyone catching a glimpse of Airwolf before Michael is back safe; even the Pentagon can put two and two together. A helicopter with these exclusive call signals has been given special clearance; we'll have to leave it at that."  
  
Jo sighed, large blue eyes resolute. "At least I won't have to worry about armaments by myself. All I have to do is follow Airwolf in and out. Piece of cake."  
  
"Let's hope it stays that way," Saint John said by way of farewell. Jo was scared -- it showed -- but she was determined, too. Saint John had no doubts that she would uphold her end of the job so long as he and String upheld theirs.  
  
Jo zipped her jacket, offering Saint John and Marella a nervous smile. "Well, I guess I'd better be--"  
  
"Wait a minute." Hawke cut her off by raising his hand, his head cocked in a listening attitude. "Helicopter coming. It's Airwolf."  
  
The other two also froze, then both slowly nodded. "I hear it, too," Marella said, tugging her makeshift nightshirt a little lower. "It must be Hawke ... I mean, Stringfellow."  
  
The three crowded around the open door, watching the sleek ebon craft hover briefly above the lake, then settle down in the clearing directly in front of the porch. It was a close fit; the whirling rotors hacked leaves and small branches from the nearest trees, littering the ground. The great body settled to earth without incident, however, resting easily on her extended landing gear.  
  
The roar of engines ceased abruptly though the great blades continued to turn for several minutes; the door opened and a gray-clad and tousled Stringfellow Hawke emerged. He resealed the cockpit and approached the cabin at an unhurried limp. "What are you all looking at?" he greeted the assembled group grumpily, brushing past them and hanging his flight jacket on a hook beside the cello.  
  
"Obviously, a grouch," Jo shot back with all of her uncle's spirit. "Sheesh. You're worse than I am in the morning." Her gaze dropped to his left boot. "You took the brace off. I'll bet your leg is hurting like heck, isn't it."  
  
If he heard her, String made no mention. He limped into the kitchen and helped himself to the coffeepot. Jo pursed her lips at the snub then angrily turned her back, Marella accepting the pilot's attitude as she always had, with poised disdain. Saint John watched his brother from the corner of his eye as he finished making his goodbyes to Jo, attempting to gauge the younger man's condition. Despite the protecting barriers, it had always been ludicrously easy for him to read Stringfellow's thoughts and feelings. Though the Hawke brand of stubbornness ran through them both, it was not difficult to pick up the subtle red flags the sensitive younger man sent up with each tense muscle and closed line of his face. That he was in pain was obvious; Jo was probably right about his ankle. But more -- String was bothered big time by all this. Even through the habitual reserve that too was a part of them both, the agitation was visible to one who knew where to look.  
  
"... see you on the ground," Jo finished, waving nervously and stepping out the door. "Good flying."  
  
"Same to you," Saint John returned, nodding gravely as she left. He waited until she'd descended the path to the water and entered the chopper, before shutting the door and returning to the parlor where Marella already was. "We'd expected you to radio for a pick-up," he told Stringfellow, shoving aside the afghan and seating himself on the sofa.  
  
"I have to admit this surprised me." Marella appropriated the afghan again, this time tying it around her waist. "I would have thought breaking cover would have been the last thing you'd want to do before a mission."  
  
Stringfellow regarded her coolly if blearily. "There's camouflage netting in the aft supply compartment," he said gruffly, setting his half-full cup in the sink. "After you're dressed you can help yourself." Saint John stirred, drawing his attention from the frustrated black woman. "That robe's too small for you," he remarked, staring pointedly at the other man's bare legs. "You should have used one of Dad's from the trunk. He was more your size."  
  
"Next time," the older brother returned, having purposely decided to avoid old memories tonight.  
  
Marella puffed out her cheeks and slipped behind the men into the kitchen, reaching for the frying pan. "How do you like your eggs, Stringfellow?"  
  
String ran a hand wearily across his face, rubbing red eyes. "Coffee was enough."  
  
"Still running missions on adrenalin jet fuel, little brother?" Saint John teased, recalling an old in-joke from the war. He was heartened when that coaxed a tiny smile from the taciturn younger man.  
  
"Why change a system that works?" String rubbed his eyes again and stumbled around a hovering Marella for the stair, unzipping his flight suit. "I'm going to catch some sack time. Wake me in an hour." Without a backward glance he was gone.  
  
Left alone, Marella and Saint John stared at each other a moment. "He didn't look at my legs," she joshed weakly, replacing the frying pan on a cold burner. "What have you got that I don't?"  
  
Hawke chuckled. He liked this pretty agent, liked her intelligence, spirit and sense of humor. He could see why she had risen so high and fast in her job. "My kid brother never did have any taste. I'm going to go put the camouflage netting on Airwolf, then run a systems check and pre-flight. That'll probably keep me awhile."  
  
One dark brow rose. "You are going to put some clothes on first?" She skimmed him brazenly. "At least you do have decent legs."  
  
Saint John's eyes twinkled. "Yours aren't so bad, either. Why don't you get dressed and come help me? We've got a lot to do if we're going to rescue your boss."  
  
It was with regret that Saint John redonned his clothes from the night before. He wished String was a little closer to his size; after spending so many years in filth, even the thought of putting on soiled garments made his skin craw. One more legacy from the war ... and the war's aftermath. New ones, it seemed, cropped up every day.  
  
He stared into the drug cabinet mirror, scrutinizing himself honestly. Bronze hair stood up in short spikes over his head, and when he looked closely he could see an occasional strand of gray. He did look older than before -- fifteen years was a long time. But the years had been kind to him. Except for his eyes. He peered deeply into the light blue-gray field, attempting to dismiss the shadows there as caused by lack of sleep. What he could not ignore was the deep creases at their edges, the gentler ones in his forehead and around his mouth. He read his history in those lines and it made him shudder.  
  
The mis-sized robe slipped to the floor, and again Saint John Hawke stopped to stare. He was well-built these days, a far cry from the walking skeleton he'd been in Laos. The Laotians had practiced slave labor, working a man until he dropped, then dumping him in an open cage until he'd recovered enough to work some more. It had been a relief when the Cambodians had raided the camp; Khmer Rouge had actually treated him reasonably well, viewing him and the other Americans as potentially valuable commodities -- potentially money-making commodities. In the year he'd been with them, he'd put on fifteen pounds and regained his ability to think clearly. And Buchard's abuses had not started until he'd needed a bargaining chip for Airwolf; before that, the mercenary had provided both medical attention and food.  
  
It was something, perhaps, if not enough. Saint John was too lean for his large frame, and slightly pale, his health still indifferent and his energy levels well below what they should be. He ran his fingers down his ribs, where white scars stood out lividly, souvenirs of beatings and torments and unending despair. He shuddered and reached for his shirt, instinctively knowing that letting String see the marks any time soon would be a very bad idea indeed. He didn't even want to see them himself.  
  
When he emerged from the bathroom it was to find Marella already clothed. From somewhere she'd found a pair of String's work pants and woolen shirt, and was even now lacing a pair of the man's sneakers. Nearly Stringfellow's height, everything was actually a decent fit, though she was obliged to belt the trousers around her small waist to keep them up.  
  
"Don't say a word," she warned, seeing the amused gleam in Hawke's eyes. "I'm not tromping around here in my favorite silk suit and high heels."  
  
As there was little answer to be made to that, the two moved outside to where Airwolf waited, a great predator crouching at the door. The elegant black craft was nearly invisible in the night save for a smattering of stars reflecting from her polished armor plate. Saint John stopped, catching his breath. "She's even beautiful when you can't see her," he murmured, pausing to stare.  
  
Marella was no less affected by the sight. "It's hard to believe that something so deadly can be so exquisite. It's almost a shame to hide her away."  
  
"Aesthetics aside," Hawke said, mentally forcing himself from his reverie, "she's too vulnerable like this. Let's get her undercover so we can begin that pre-flight. And we can talk."  
  
"Talk?" Marella echoed with interest. "About?" Saint John's gaze flicked involuntarily toward the cabin, and her face fell. "Oh. Him. I should have known."  
  
Designed for rapid deployment, it took only minutes to spread the camouflage netting over the ship, from tail to great blades to nose. The mottled coloration would make it blend from above with the surrounding foliage during the day; thermal absorbent, it would cloak even the warmth of the engines from an infra-red scan at night.  
  
Once satisfied that Airwolf would remain invisible to uninvited observers, Hawke and Marella began a Class 1 check of internal systems, not relying on the computer read-outs but pulling off panels and poking into mechanics until certain that each component and its backup were in perfect working order. As they worked, they talked -- or rather, Marella did. Perceptive and worldly wise, she seemed to discern Saint John's need for information about his brother's life. The attractive agent rattled off episode after episode, starting with Airwolf's liberation from Moffett's greedy clutch, and including interpretations based on both professional data and her own feminine instinct. When she was through, Saint John felt that he had a more thorough understanding of Stringfellow Hawke's recent life, reading from each incident the unbending sense of honor, the rock stubborn determination, the emotional isolation his brother had imposed upon himself ... and the reasons behind it. It wasn't anything he hadn't suspected nor anything beyond what he had experienced himself, but it both inspired and depressed him not one whit less.  
  
"... which is why the Firm was determined to get Airwolf back," Marella finished two-and-one-half hours later, while applying an electronic tester to a servo-extended chain gun. "With Dominic Santini dead and you presumed so, Stringfellow was deemed too unstable to trust with government missions. The entire Committee had agreed that bringing in another Airwolf flight crew was the only solution. That's one of the reason's Major Rivers was contacted instead of internal intelligence."  
  
"And String.... Now that I'm back?" Saint John asked, poking his head out from under the forward instrument access. He held his breath, the answer to this question suddenly very important.  
  
"Maybe some of your sense of humor will rub off?" She touched a circuit with the gauge tip, then studied the indicator closely. "Seriously, that's quite an accomplishment. I wouldn't have expected you to have gone through what you did and kept a sense of humor at all."  
  
"A sense of humor is the biggest crutch a prisoner has," Saint John said, remembering camaraderie with the pain. "String never did have much of one even as a kid, though he's got this wild, mischievous streak that always meant fun. At least, he did." He waited, and when she merely moved on to another wire, prodded, "You think the ... 'unstable' Stringfellow Hawke might bounce back a bit now that I'm home?"  
  
"Now that big brother is back?" She winked at him but said earnestly, "I hope you're not going to take responsibility for his success or failure on that front. I'm afraid your brother is a little too self-reliant these days for that."  
  
Responsibility? Saint John slammed the access closed while choosing his words carefully. "I'm four years older than he is," he began, watching his own movements in the obsidian mirror. "That makes a big difference when you're kids, especially when you don't have anyone but each other." He didn't even have me for the last half of his life. I should have been here. Aloud he finished, "I guess old habits die hard."  
  
She considered this then shrugged. "I can't really answer your question. Obviously, we haven't had a chance to do a work-up on him, yet. Once he was reported dead, his file was closed."  
  
She was so casual about it that Hawke prickled. "You're pretty blasè about it. Man dies, you close his file and go on about your business?"  
  
The tester faltered, then she was withdrawing it and turning to face him. "And just what would you have me do?" Very deliberately she began to coil the instrument's cord, her movements sure and unapologetic. "People die in this business all the time, Mr. Hawke. It's a fact of life. I do mourn -- I have mourned -- then I go on. I can't stop living because a friend does. Not Stringfellow, not even Michael." She hesitated, the impression one of steeling oneself before plunging into cold water. "That's what your brother did for you; would you fault me for not doing the same thing?"  
  
Saint John felt his jaw tighten but innate honestly held the angry words in. She was right. He wouldn't want anyone to choose String's path; the thought that his younger brother had mourned so intensely was something to be regretted rather than advocated. "You're a pretty remarkable woman," he said by way of apology.  
  
White teeth flashed. "So I've been told, Mr. Hawke. Just not recently."  
  
He laughed, relaxing and wishing he could know her better. The possibility occurred; he could ask her to dinner after the assignment concluded, spend some time with her off-duty. He opened his mouth to propose just that then closed it, the words aborted on his tongue. Beginning a relationship with her or anyone else right now would be unfair. Fifteen years in his own private hell had left too many scars beyond those on his body -- too many uncertainties -- to burden another with yet. His brother's need was a part of it as well. Maybe someday he would pick up the phone, call her in Washington. Someday. Maybe soon. Not now.  
  
By the time they'd inspected the belly cannon -- the last of the weapons to be so handled -- the sun was peeking over the mountain tops.  
  
"Better go wake String," Hawke said, ducking out from the camouflage and staring at the rose-colored waters with pleasure. It really was magnificent up here. "We rendezvous with Jo in four hours."  
  
Marella looked at her watch, an expensive pearl Swatch. "He wanted us to wake him two hours ago. He'll probably be annoyed."  
  
Hawke breathed deeply, the pure air stimulating. "I stopped worrying about annoying my brother when he was seven and wanted to tag along on my first date. It cost me my favorite baseball cap, but I finally made him see it my way."  
  
She hiked up the borrowed pants, laughing. "Let's hope you haven't lost your touch."  
  
Hawke left the woman in the kitchen putting on fresh coffee while he ascended the wooden staircase to the second level. The bedroom was gloomy, but battle-honed instincts told Saint John that the sleeper still slept; sharp ears told him that he didn't sleep well.  
  
Saint John approached the bed quietly, nursing a sudden desire for a look at his brother without the carefully maintained mask. String hadn't changed much, he decided, examining the younger man with blatant curiosity. A little thinner, the light brown hair a little shorter than before. The features were finely drawn, like their mother's had been, and boyish at first glance. Lines had been etched around the eyes, however, in mirror- image of Saint John's own, which told their own tales of experience beyond their years, and the defensive set to his lips bade everyone to keep their distance. Quite suddenly, Saint John remembered a serious but lively little boy who had followed his adored older brother everywhere, and grieved.  
  
Almost as though sensing the scrutiny, Stringfellow stirred in his sleep, burying his face a little deeper in the pillow and murmuring what sounded like the name, "Dom." Saint John remembered the anguish and terrors that assailed himself during the long hours of darkness. How often had he roused with a snap, covered with sweat and aching, the jungles so real he could feel the bite of the mosquitos and taste the bland rice that had comprised most of his diet? For just a moment the scene tilted and the world was green, the stench of the rotting jungle filling his nostrils and permeating every inch of air. The thunder of chopper blades roared in his ears, and Saint John again saw an eighteen year old pilot, who was staring down at him with horror. "Get out of here!" Saint John heard himself screaming, and then the boy was gone and only the Viet Cong remained ... for a very long time.  
  
A distant murmur intruded in a voice not his own, a low sob, and the world re-righted itself. Immediately, Saint John reached down to shake the other man back to awareness. "Hey, String!" he called softly, releasing the lean shoulder immediately. "Time to go, guy."  
  
Blue eyes flew open, wariness immediately dropping over them, another sob choked back and Stringfellow was awake. He glanced from Saint John to the digital clock on the nightstand, blinked, then started. "Seven o'clock!" he bellowed accusingly. "I was supposed to be up over two hours ago."  
  
"You needed the sleep," the elder Hawke returned mildly, letting his gaze drift out the window to the artificial mound obstructing the view of the lake. "There's plenty of time."  
  
"I'll decide that," Stringfellow grumbled, rubbing his eyes.  
  
Saint John glanced away from the window, offering him an amused look. "I see some things haven't changed in all these years," he said, a rich chuckle erupting of its own accord. "You're still a pain in the butt."  
  
Disarmed by the affectionate non sequitur, Stringfellow stared, the guarded look in his eyes slipping for a split second and allowing a fraction of his own amusement to shine through. "I must'a picked it up from someone."  
  
He hesitated, looking as though he wanted to say something but not sure how to start. Saint John gave him the time by turning back to the window and craning his neck. "The camouflage net is pretty remarkable; even from this few feet away I can barely make out the lines of the chopper."  
  
"Nothing but the best for the Firm's favorite weapon," String returned dryly, sitting upright and letting the sheets fall around his waist. "Saint John...?"  
  
"Yes?" Saint John lowered himself to the right edge of the bed, clasping his hands loosely between his knees, wondering at the hesitant tone in his normally over-assured brother's voice.  
  
Dark blue eyes focussed on the linens before rising curiously. "Why did you agree to fly Airwolf for the Firm? You don't owe them anything for getting you out of Southeast Asia."  
  
"Keeping up the family business?" Saint John quipped automatically, his own reserve clicking into place. When the younger man only looked at him, Saint John Hawke shrugged. "It just seemed like the thing to do, I guess. I needed some kind of purpose after I got back, and you're pretty blasted independent." When there was still no response, he went on with more reluctance, "Maybe I was taking care of her for you. Or for Dom. Maybe just for myself."  
  
"You didn't have to." Stringfellow ran his fingers lightly across the sheet, gaze carefully down. "All you need to do is start living your own life."  
  
"Maybe I am," the older man replied, watching the slim fingers trace an invisible pattern on the white. "When are you going to?"  
  
The question seemed to surprise his brother. The patterns ceased briefly then resumed. "I don't know what you mean. You were the POW."  
  
Saint John sighed, and once more the world went green. "Yeah. I was the POW. From a filthy, stinking hole to a cage too small to stand or lie down. Rice paddies and fields and hunger and ... after awhile, no hope left." He became aware that his brother had looked up and was watching him with wide, haunted eyes. Blast it! Causing String to live through what he had, even vicariously, was not what he'd intended. He tried for a lighter tone but it came out sour even to his own ears. "The life and times of Captain Saint John Hawke. Make a great book, eh? From mountain retreat to Viet Nam swamps to thrilling rescue by a super secret spy agency. Best seller stuff."  
  
"You've never talked about it before," Stringfellow said, now grabbing the edge of the sheet and twisting, though his body was very still. "What it was like there. With them."  
  
No, he hadn't. Not even with Mike, with whom he'd spent more time than anyone since he came home. But the dim room and intimacy of the shadows inspired confidences somehow, and Saint John could not forget that the man who shared the shadows also shared his ghosts. "I haven't really thought about it before," he admitted, unable to turn from the blue eyes that seemed to penetrate his very skull. "I don't think I've let myself think about anything except ... today." A shudder worked its way through his frame, raw nerves tingling agonizingly. "Would you want to remember hell?"  
  
"Is there any way to forget?" the younger man whispered and there was naked appeal in his face.  
  
Was there? He'd shied away from the memories for two months, but even now the protective mental shields were crumbling. Wet and hunger and cold. A tattered uniformed man with a whip. A fellow American screaming throughout the night ... and then never screaming again. Jungle green became glittering blue in a tormented, fine-boned face, and some form of personal perspective imposed itself, strangely calming. Hell could never be any worse than Viet Nam ... and he'd gladly volunteer to do it all over again if it would erase just a fraction of that misery from String's eyes. Obviously, Hell had suburbs outside of Southeast Asia. "How?" he echoed, all lightness gone. "Maybe by dwelling on the fact that I am free. Needless to say, I'm pretty grateful."  
  
"You don't owe them anything," String repeated, eyes burning even in the gloom. "No obligations to anyone."  
  
"I wasn't grateful to them," the older man pointed out, tilting his head. "I'm grateful to Jo, Jason and Mike for coming after me. I'm even more grateful to you for making it possible. If not for you pushing all these years -- even putting your life on the line -- I'd still be rotting in a cage."  
  
"If it hadn't been for me," Stringfellow replied in a very low voice, "you wouldn't have been in that cage."  
  
And there it was, out in the open at last, what the younger man had been trying so hard to not say since they'd been reunited. Saint John shook his head as the impact of those quiet, agonized words dented his carefully constructed concept of reality. The belief that his brother had been here, safe and happy, had been the mainstay of his existence back when all other stays were being unraveled one by one. Even then he'd been afraid of the effects his loss would have on a boy who had taken earlier losses too hard already, but it had been easier to believe that String would see what happened as he did -- as inevitable accident rather than personal culpability. He sighed; he should have known better. With Stringfellow, it never paid to take anything at face value.  
  
Moving very slowly he reached around String from the front and placed his left hand on the younger man's neck, letting his fingers play in the soft hair at the nape the way he used to many years before, and was acting big brother to a small child. "Did you really think I would blame you for what happened?" he asked in a gentle voice, expecting String to pull away and surprised and pleased when he did not. "Back ... there, when I was caged, I kept going because I knew that no matter how bad it got, you were here waiting, safe. If I'd let myself believe for one minute that you were blaming yourself...." He stopped, wondering what could have made his own brother doubt that the affection they'd shared would have absolved him of much more than an act of heroism.  
  
"I was at the controls," Stringfellow returned in a choked voice, not looking up when Saint John tugged at a short strand of hair. "It was my decision to go. To leave you there for them."  
  
"There was no decision," Saint John snapped back, demanding to be understood, forcing himself beyond the limits of his own walls though his soul recoiled, and all for his brother's sake. "If you had stayed, everyone would have gone down. How many do you think would have survived one week in the camps much less fifteen years? There were wounded men depending on you to get them out. No choice. And no blame." He slid his hand forward, firmly using his thumb to tilt that stubborn, well-known face toward him. "How do you think I would have felt if you had stayed and those men had died because of it? Because of me, String. Fifteen years for eight lives isn't a bad trade.  
  
It was with obvious reluctance that String met his gaze. Beyond the guilt and pain there was something else, and Saint John flinched when he recognized self-hatred. All this because of me? Oh, kid, maybe it wasn't such a good trade after all.... "It was a lousy trade," Stringfellow echoed the thought as counterpoint, face and eyes anguished.  
  
"No. It wasn't." Stringfellow made to pull away but Saint John abruptly tightened his hold on the other's neck, using it to yank the younger man sideways and against him, wrapping him in both arms and holding on securely, both needing and protective at once. Don't reject me, kid, he begged, shutting his eyes. I need this as much as you do. After a moment he felt String's arms slip hesitantly around his chest, his head settle against his shoulder. Stringfellow clung desperately as he must have needed to do for years -- as Saint John had needed to do for years -- old barriers and personal reserve shattering like glass. "Don't hurt any more, String. Let it go. For both our sakes."  
  
They held on to each other for a long minute until some of the tension seeped out of String's body and the jungle faded completely from Saint John's world. Then Saint John squeezed once and pulled back, still holding his brother by the upper arms. "Hey, I'm home now," he said with some measure of cheer, studying the other's lean face closely and wanting more than anything for their lives to return to normal ... or as close as they could get. "Can we go on from there?"  
  
"I ... guess we ought to." String essayed a tiny smile. The guarded look returned but at least that horrible self-hatred had faded. He might not be completely convinced but there was the beginnings of peace in the back of his eyes, and he was rock steady again, back on balance. Like himself, Saint John knew. The rest -- like the scars he himself carried -- would only heal with time. "Guess I'd better get dressed," the younger man went on. "We've got a rendezvous in a couple hours and I seem to have overslept."  
  
"Grade A pain in the butt," the elder Hawke retorted, slapping his younger brother affectionately on one bare shoulder. "Nice to see some things never change."  
  
*** 


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
  
It was an old cargo plane that transported Mike Rivers and Jason Locke to the deserted landing strip inside the Mexican border. From there, they hitchhiked the twenty miles into Pindarte, catching a ride on the back of a dilapidated farm truck laden with hay bales. Before long the old clothes they wore as disguise were dusty and covered with straw, and Rivers' allergies were in full swing. Quite understandably, his temper had frayed with the allergy, and by the time they'd boarded the jitney for the la casa del Patron at dawn, he and Locke, the conveniently handy recipient of his choler, were barely on speaking terms.  
  
Rivers edged past the patently uninterested jitney driver and settled onto the narrow bench next to Locke, dropping a battered carry-all bag at his feet. "I should'a found a drugstore somewhere," he mumbled out of the side of his mouth. "I feel like I'm carrying Boulder Dam around in my sinuses."  
  
"Your sinuses are going to have to drain later," Locke returned irritably, also keeping his voice low. "From here on in we're walking a line."  
  
Rivers sniffed and reached into his pocket for a tissue, remembering at the last moment that he was a wondering vagabond bereft of such niceties. He cursed and rubbed his red and itching nose on his jacket sleeve, getting a snootfull of fresh hay for his trouble. He sneezed, cursed again and shrugged the coat off onto the floor. "You walk, I'll stagger," he grumbled, accepting an old but clean handkerchief from an elderly woman sitting to his left. "Gracias, mamacita."  
  
She offered him a gap-toothed grin in return, mumbled something about Nyquil, and inquired politely into his origin. Mike, with a soft spot for old women and recognizing a source of information when he saw one, chatted her up amiably, nodding at the proper times and using the opportunity to gauge her reactions to the place he was going to. He gathered from her gossip that the Patron was not well liked among the peones, ruling his household with fear and an iron hand. It was even rumored, she confided in a lowered voice, that those who displeased him occasionally disappeared without a trace. She knew a lady whose husband's cousin vanished just like that! Mike was forced to assure her several times that he would be indeed careful not to rile the Patron, and asked about the Lady of the house. Was Señora Mejindas so fearsome?  
  
"Señora Mejindas," came back haughtily, is a sainte. As kind as she is beautiful. You will find out for yourself, Miguelito, as soon as you meet her."  
  
"I'm looking forward to it," Rivers returned with a cherubic smile.  
  
Locke, who had been discussing the local terrain with a youthful gardener opposite, nudged Rivers with his elbow. "There's the fortress," he said quietly, pointing to the far window. "Impressive, isn't it?"  
  
It certainly was, even from the distance. Dark stone walls rose twenty feet from a stark plane, the far side bordering a sheer, unscalable precipice. Ensconced within the walls, a block-built building rose, constructed of that same dark granite. The windows were small and wide- spaced, barely large enough for a child to squeeze through much less a man. Marella had said the fortress was old, leading back to the days of the Spanish conquest, and it undeniably looked the part, yet it was sturdy and timeless as well, giving the impression of age and agelessness at once. Incongruous to the scene was the slowly rotating radar dish on the roof, a reminder of the present.  
  
"Bet there's even a dungeon." Mike whistled, pointing at a sign that warned intruders in both spanish and english that trespassing was dangerous. "Mine field. Marella didn't have the pattern, either."  
  
"Maybe Mrs. Mejindas does."  
  
"Let's hope so," Rivers commented grimly. "If we're going to find Archangel, fight our way out of there, and make it to the pickup point all by one o'clock, we're going to need a little expert help. Speaking of which...." He leaned back on the bench, crossing his feet comfortably at the ankle. "What did you think of Stringfellow Hawke?"  
  
"What did you think?" Jason volleyed cautiously.  
  
Mike grinned. "I think I thought he'd be taller, older and a better conversationalist." He raised both hands over his head. "From the rep he's packing, he should have been six-foot-seven and built like John Wayne. Oh, and be able to sway the crowds with a word and a smile." The hands dropped back to his own height, closing inward. "So what do we get? Some guy built no bigger than us normal mortals, who hasn't smiled since he was in diapers and communicates like a rabid bear." He grimaced. "I think I'm disappointed."  
  
"You don't have to be King Kong to fly a chopper," Jason returned over a laugh. He pointedly examined the other's trim if muscled physique. "You're living proof of that."  
  
Rivers eloquently responded by sticking out his tongue at the agent. "My turn. What do you think of Saint John's baby brother?"  
  
Jason chuckled. "I think if you ever call him that to his face, he's going to bust you one in the mouth."  
  
"I figure that myself." The two exchanged a smile, irritation fading as the conversation synchronized them for the upcoming action. "Really, though, you had access to his dossier at some point, didn't you? Ah-HA! I knew it!" Mike crowed when Locke wiggled uncomfortably. "Give me the poop on baby brother."  
  
"Privileged information...." Locke began. He broke off when Mike slapped his leg.  
  
"Don't give me any of that," the blond pilot returned. "Not when my life is riding on this joker. Give."  
  
Locke considered this, then nodded. "If it'll make you feel any better...."  
  
"I doubt it," Rivers muttered, clasping his hands behind his head. "But give it to me, anyway. How would you sum him up?"  
  
Locke fingered the edge of his mustache thoughtfully. "Before now -- obsessed, maybe even unstable. He spent years pushing with government groups, hiring mercs ... the whole thing ... to find out what happened to Saint John. I understand he only worked for the Company at all to use our contacts to investigate reports of MIA sightings. Spent fourteen years at it."  
  
"Determined little bugger, wasn't he?"  
  
Jason rubbed his throat reminiscently. "That's putting it mildly. Did you know the Company offered him a million dollars to steal Airwolf back from Moffett?"  
  
Mike goggled. "A million dollars? They paid him that for one mission?"  
  
Locke shook his head. "I said they offered him a million dollars. He turned it down."  
  
"He--?!"  
  
Locke nodded, his smile slow and lazy. "Instead of the money, he demanded they locate Saint John ... or his remains." He sighed. "See what I mean? He was a pain in the but from the beginning, pestering Research for any info on MIAs, making demands for Airwolf's use." He and Mike shared a long look, each considering the ramifications of a man who would bring his life to a virtual stand-still and devote it to the search for a man probably long dead. "Eventually he became my pain in the butt. I had a lot of sympathy for Archangel after that."  
  
"You didn't get along?" Mike asked innocently.  
  
Jason again rubbed his throat across the larynx. "He tried to take my head off the first day. If not for Company security, he might have succeeded."  
  
"You didn't have him arrested," Rivers pointed out. "Neither did Archangel."  
  
Jason shook his head. "Besides the fact that he still had Airwolf at the time, I couldn't bring myself to strike back at him. Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my old age ..." Rivers snorted his opinion of that. "... but he wasn't just angry, he was ... desperate. Try not to judge the guy too hard," Jason finished. "He's had some rough spots in his life."  
  
"Haven't we all?" Rivers asked though there was a kernel of understanding in his breezy tone. "Go on. What else?"  
  
"What else?" He pursed his lips then recited as though from memory, "Stringfellow Hawke, the youngest of two sons of former Navy Lieutenant Alan B. Hawke. Stringfellow was born in the Colorado mountains while his father was working with one of the air transport lines there. Family returned to California -- where Saint John had been born four years earlier -- when he was three. Parents died in a boating accident when he was ten -- drowned in front of him. They were going through a divorce at the time. When he was sixteen he bribed a wino to sign for him to join the Army -- Saint John was already in Viet Nam. I understand Santini dragged him home by the scruff of the neck that time, but he re-upped and shipped out to 'Nam when he was seventeen."  
  
"Figured he went in early," Rivers interjected, genuinely interested. "I was still in boot camp when Saigon fell and I think we're the same age.  
  
"Actually, Major," Locke teased, "you're two days older."  
  
"Didn't have any winos to bribe in Malibu," Mike retorted. "I had to wait on my dad, who made me do a couple years of university work first. Then the Air Force Academy. Then I had to earn my rank one grade at a time." He rubbed his chin wistfully. "Wish I could have swung Viet Nam. You pick up promotions pretty fast in the field ... even in the Army."  
  
"Picked up a lot of medals, too. And some scars. The day before he left the United States there was a car accident. His girlfriend was killed. Middle of his second tour he lost Saint John on a mission, was wounded and shipped home all at once. From what I understand, he spent every minute he wasn't flying for the Company or Jo's uncle, or investigating MIA sightings, up on that mountain by himself."  
  
"Too bad," Rivers commented not without sympathy. "I heard him and that old guy, Santini, were pretty close, too."  
  
Locke nodded. "Took him and Saint John in after their parents were killed. You remember he was murdered in the same explosion that hurt Hawke. Had to go through all that believing Saint John was gone, too."  
  
"I can see why the guy is so gloomy," Mike said softly. "But Saint John went through it, too, and he's at least approaching human. Sometimes."  
  
"Saint John," Locke returned, "went through his own brand of torture and handles it in his own way. He did have the advantage of being a little older when everything started going down, but he's got enough scars of his own. Besides, now he knows you. Remember how he was those first couple weeks back?"  
  
Rivers considered, still rubbing his round jaw. "About as cool as baby brother. He's warmed up a lot since then." He brightened. "Maybe now that his big brother is back, the icicle will pick up a sense of humor or something like Saint John did ... or at least, whatever is passing for a sense of humor in Saint John. Guy's got a sneaky way with a quip. But baby brother is a pretty cold fish."  
  
"I don't care if he brings on the next ice age," Locke returned, "so long as he can get Airwolf through that Haversham screen." He rested his head on the side of the bus. "I saw him fly a couple of times back when Airwolf was still in the design stage. His reputation was well-earned; he's easily the best pilot I've ever seen."  
  
"Better than me?" Rivers asked as though such an inconceivable concept had just emerged on the world.  
  
Locke hesitated, then nodded. "Better than you."  
  
Mike pulled himself haughtily erect. "That," he sniffed, "I'll believe when I see it." He sobered suddenly. "And I'd better see it ... at one o'clock this afternoon."  
  
The two maintained a careful silence until the bus had passed between the metal gates inserted in the front wall. They disembarked and were met by a formally suited butler, who greeted them coldly in spanish. "You charwomen know your duties," he snapped in gruff tones, a clipboard held several inches from his thick face. "The rest of you report to your supervisors." He squinted closer at the clipboard. "Miguelito and Juan?"  
  
"Right here, señor." Jason stepped forward, Mike at his heels. "We were ordered to report today?"  
  
The butler nodded. "You'll be assisting Raul in the garden. This way."  
  
The two Americans followed the short, portly man through a servants' entrance to the rear. After a cursory search of both their persons and gear, he delivered them to a gruff Mexican named Raul, who put them to work spreading manure on some flower beds. The task gave them ample opportunity to scout the grounds inside the wall but both were sweating by the time the butler summoned them up the front stairs and into a magnificent reception hall. "Señora Mejindas wishes to see you. Wait," he ordered curtly before disappearing down a side hall. Despite the fortress' gloomy exterior, inside was all color and light, oak panelling on the stone walls, the hard floor covered by thick mauve rugs. The effect was soothing and breath- taking at once.  
  
"Cool," Mike murmured under his breath, gazing at an expensive watercolor on the wall. "Wonder how many agents' lives it took to pay for all this."  
  
Jason, too, had trouble concealing his awe. "Not bad. You did notice the metal detectors built into the foyer."  
  
"No problem." Mike patted the rucksack slung over his arm. "Non-metallic weapons are the wave of the future." He glanced at the cheap watch on his left wrist. "It's after eleven o'clock. Something better happen soon."  
  
"Shhhhhh. Someone's coming."  
  
The two fell silent at the sound of footsteps in the corridor, then the butler reappeared at the heels of a tall woman in a green silk jumpsuit. Perfectly coiffured short black hair fell back from an alabaster forehead, barely tickling the slender shoulders under the silk. Large eyes a peculiarly brilliant shade of green that matched the jumpsuit, gazed at them with professional impartiality. "These are the new workers?" the woman asked in accented spanish.  
  
"Si." The short butler indicated Jason with a stubby forefinger. "This one is named Juan; the other one who resembles an Americano is named Miguelito."  
  
"Miguelito, huh?" The woman dimpled. "Welcome to my home. Pablo, you're dismissed to your duties."  
  
"Gracias, Señora." The butler bowed at the waist then departed, vanishing down another of the myriad corridors comprising the house.  
  
Once he was gone the brunette switched back to english, keeping her voice low. "I understand you are both religious men?" she asked with a tinge of fear.  
  
Mike, willing to take any occasion to comfort a beautiful woman, gave her his widest mega-watt smile. "We make daily offerings to the Archangel."  
  
She relaxed fractionally though still carrying a frightened look. "Good. You were recommended by Mamacita Logan in town, as hard workers, though a little slow in the head." She tapped her temple meaningfully. "We employ several of the mentally retarded from the village; it will give you an excuse to work closely with me."  
  
Mike drew himself up indignantly. "You told them I was el stupido?" he demanded, nevertheless discreetly glancing in all directions and keeping his voice low. "That hurts, Señora." He took a step nearer the beautiful agent, boyish smile taking on a seductive quality. "Or is the name Mina?"  
  
"Until we're out of here," the woman answered firmly, "the name is Señora Mejindas. Afterward...." She skimmed his figure briefly, from long, wavy blond hair down to the good shoulders and trim hips, then gave him a saucy wink. "I may be in the market for a divorce in a day or two. Give me a call."  
  
Locke's very audible sigh was long-suffering incarnate. "If you two are through planning your social calendar, can we get on with this? Our ride will be arriving at siesta time and we don't have more than a rudimentary plan, yet."  
  
Mina Mejindas led the way down a side corridor, gesturing for them to follow. "Casa del Suerte was built in the year of our Lord 1740, by Spanish missionaries under Garcia Mejindas. Coincidentally, my husband is a direct descendent. The foot-thick walls are solid granite, locally quarried."  
  
"You sound like a tour guide," Mike complained, sharp eyes missing nothing of his surroundings.  
  
"Missionaries built this?" Jason asked, also switching into spanish. "What would missionaries want with a fortress?"  
  
The jumpsuit's transparent overjacket wafted lightly when Mina slapped one panelled wall. "During the Spanish conquest of Mexico and California it was deemed necessary to keep the natives under firm but gentle control to prevent the poor heathens from rebelling against God. It's original name was Mission of Saint Simon the Merciful." She snorted. "Swinging title,eh?"  
  
"Way cool." Mike stopped, pointing to a bulge running just under the carpet. "Place wired?"  
  
"Alarms not sound." She tapped Rivers' arm and they resumed their march, down one corridor then another, passing lavishly furnished rooms on either side. Dark-uniformed maids and neatly groomed handy-men bowed respectfully as they passed; Mejindas acknowledged them with a nod but didn't break her stride. "Inquisition lasted a little longer here on the frontier than it did back in Europe. Thanks to that little time warp, we ended up with our very own dungeon occupying the entire sub-basement." She turned into a doorway, her expression sardonic. "It's the little touches that really sell a house. This part is much nicer; it's my music room."  
  
"The dungeon is where they're keeping Archangel?" Jason asked, eying a pair of waiting buckets and mops with resignation. "I assume those are for us."  
  
"You assume right." Mina Mejindas walked past him to the writing desk beside the door, and pulled out a cellophane packet and expensive lighter from the top drawer. "About your boss and mine being kept below, the answer is, yes." She extracted a cigarette from the pack and placed it between her lips. "Up until three months ago, I had free roam of the house. Though I showed no apparent interest, my husband and I held a tacit understanding that I knew what he was up to and subtly approved of anything that made us some money." Red painted lips twitched. "He found that exciting for some reason."  
  
"What happened three months ago?" Jason asked, glancing once into the hall.  
  
Mina flicked the lighter, touching the resultant flame to her cigarette and puffing it to life. "About three months ago we started getting visitors, all with funny, mid-eastern accents. Technicians and nighttime deliveries became commonplace. When I asked Carlos about it he said something about installing a little protection and let it drop. I found out later that that 'protection' was anti-aircraft batteries and three helicopter gunships complete with mercenary pilots. Add that to the mined landscape and foot thick walls and you have a pretty impregnable little hideaway for someone ... or for something."  
  
"Some thing?" Mike prodded, still watching her appreciatively.  
  
The cigarette described a casual arc. "There are two chambers off the main corridor under the house. One leads to the cells; the other used to be a granary -- for when the indians would besiege the fortress in the old days." Ash dropped onto the expensive green jumpsuit and Mina Mejindas loosed a low oath and brushed it away quickly. "Needless to say, there's no grain down there," she resumed, glowering at a minuscule mark on her outfit. "But there is enough computer equipment to run NASA. What it's for, I've no idea."  
  
"Maybe I do." Jason again checked the empty hall before pulling in his head. "Contacts in Kuwait have reported rumors of a planned multi-frontal assault on United States territory. This could be one of their bases."  
  
"Three helicopters and peasant labor isn't going to make much difference to the US Air Force," Rivers snorted, pulling a stalk of straw out of his wheat-colored hair. "Is the guy suicidal?"  
  
"He's a creep," Mina interjected, "but my husband is not suicidal. And he's no fool. There's more to all this than we can see, count on it."  
  
Jason left the door for her side. "Most likely this is a control point for a remote launch. The missiles themselves could be anywhere in the country."  
  
"Guess we've got two jobs cut out for us, don't we?" Mike asked brightly.  
  
Rather than getting to work, Rivers and Locke prowled the spacious chamber curiously. As a music room it certainly lived up to it's name for it was dominated by the beautifully carved grand piano which took up most of the north corner. Around the walls various instruments sat on display. Rivers wandered to a seven-foot bass violin and plucked a string; a deep, resonant note sounded, reverberating from high ceilings. "Who plays Mt. Everest?" he asked, abandoning the bass for a little violin in a case.  
  
"No one living in this place," she said. "The last time anyone actually played an instrument in here was during a party we had in March. Natasha Sczymykov; heard of her?"  
  
Locke, peering out the room's one large window at a neatly kept, private garden, lightly stroked his mustache, a sure sign of cogitation. "The concert pianist? Who hasn't. I assume the grounds within the wall aren't mined?"  
  
"That side of the wall overlooks the precipice," Mina retorted. "With a sheer drop of seventy-five feet, he didn't even bother to set alarms." She smoked quietly for a moment, green eyes following the two men in the wanderings. "Carlos has two armed guards barring the way to the basement, with at least one more guarding Archangel."  
  
Mike finished his browse and returned to the woman's side. He leaned one hip on the desk from where he could meet her gaze at approximately her level. "If you can't get into the basement," he asked reasonably, "how do you know it's Archangel they're keeping downstairs? Your husband could have turned it into a pool hall and he doesn't want you to know."  
  
She dragged on her cigarette, emitting a puff of white smoke through her nostrils. "One thing you have to remember about my husband is that Carlos Mejindas is a gambler, a ratfink and a dreamer. He fancies himself one of the old conquistidors come to life -- like a Latin D'Artagnon. If it ain't dramatic, he don't do it. That's how he got into all this." She indicated the grand room with a wave of her cigarette. "When we moved in here, he spent a lot of time and even more money searching the place for hidden rooms and secret passages."  
  
"He found one?" Jason asked, abandoning the window to again glance out the door.  
  
Mina shook her dark head. "He didn't; I did."  
  
Appreciation sparked Mike's gaze. "And how, may I ask, did a pretty little thing like you manage where the experts failed?"  
  
She shrugged with pseudo-nonchalance. "I didn't say the experts failed, I said my husband didn't find out. I bribed the engineers to say the walls were solid, then had them tell me and only pretty little me where the openings were." She buffed perfectly manicured nails on her jumpsuit. "A minor case of arson insured no one else ever saw the plans and a couple of threats of bodily harm sent the engineers out of the country."  
  
"You are efficient," Mike murmured, touching her cheek. "There's an entry from this room?"  
  
"I brought you here for the view?" Mina crossed from the desk to the nearest inner wall, located directly behind the piano. Lips moving silently, she paced off seven feet to the window and knelt, feeling in the carpet. She heaved and an entire section of carpet and floor swung open on oiled pivots. "I fixed the carpet myself to conceal the joint in the floor. This one leads the length of the house, with stairs going down into the basement and sub-basement."  
  
"Any tunnels leading out under the wall?" Jason asked, stooping to peer into the dark tunnel.  
  
"At one time, maybe. From what I can tell, a major branch collapsed years ago. At least, it was going in the right direction. Oh, you'll find flashlights at the bottom of this hatch." She let the trap door swing shut, then allowed Mike to help her to her feet. "This brings you out less than a dozen feet from where they're holding Archangel. With one guard on the cell, it should be a snap for you to get him out."  
  
"Bringing him back up here?" Mike asked, continuing to hold her hand even after she'd found her balance.  
  
Black hair bounced as she shook her head. "Too much distance to travel to get out. Besides, the guards are barracked on this side of the house. Your best bet is to go right out the kitchen entrance and over the wall. I'm ... uh ... having it painted and there's a ladder or two lying around outside the kitchen door."  
  
Both Jason and Mike regarded her with a healthy dose of respect. "Lady," Locke said, taking her other hand, "when Marella said you were a trained operative, she didn't tell us the half. You're good. I'm starting to believe we'll actually get away with this."  
  
"Remind me to show you my appreciation once we get out of here," Rivers added meaningfully.  
  
Mina Mejindas dimpled. "I'll hold you to it."  
  
It was Jason who brought them all back to sobriety. "Mike, you and I are going to have to scout the kitchen entrance to the basement. We're also going to need an edge to get past the two guards there. If they catch us in those constricted corridors, we're all dead."  
  
Rivers dropped the rucksack and unzipped it, pulling out several pairs of old jeans and used work gloves, dumping them in a heap behind the desk. There was a click and the bottom lifted neatly out, revealing a wide flat receptacle. "Got just the thing," he said, pulling out lumps of what looked like putty. "Plastique and mercury detonators. We plant this stuff in the kitchen and set it to go off when we have our grounded angel."  
  
Locke nodded. "That should give us the diversion we need to get over the wall ... I hope. Once outside our ride should be waiting."  
  
"Provided baby brother is doing his job," Rivers grumbled, again rummaging in the bag.  
  
Mina's forehead wrinkled. "Baby brother? Yours?"  
  
"If he was mine," Mike said, pulling off a wad of the explosive and inserting a tube shaped detonator, "he wouldn't have made it through adolescence. Timer's set; how do we deliver it to the kitchen?"  
  
Mina thought carefully, then made her way to the display racks on the wall. She pulled a tiny flute out of its case and tossed it carelessly on the floor, returning to the men with the empty case. "Put it in here. You can leave it in the kitchen and I'll issue orders that no one is to touch it until I say so. We'll call it a surprise for the Patron."  
  
"Have a little 'gift' delivered to the hangar, too," Mike interjected. "That should prevent the choppers from being used against us later."  
  
"Right."  
  
Appropriating the bag, Jason next extracted two unusually shaped guns. Their color was gray, the material of manufacture making them look oddly like children's toys. They were no toys; made entirely of plastic, these guns had short operational lives but carried the advantage of being invisible to metal detectors. Locke handed one to Mike, stuffing the second into the waistband of his jeans.  
  
"We'll deliver the Patron's present while we're filling these," Mike said, indicating the buckets with a flourish. "You talk to the gardeners and get them to work on the far side of the building out of harm's way. But make sure you're outside the kitchen door at exactly quarter to one." He kissed her fingers then released her and accepted the bucket and mop Locke tendered. "Don't be afraid, schveethart! We're on the job."  
  
Mina nodded and headed for the door. "If your action is as lousy as your Cagney," she shot over her shoulder, "I'm terrified."  
  
"Philistine," Mike mumbled, following her out.  
  
***  
  
Travelling at 800 knots per hour, Airwolf split the air like an obsidian bullet, her passage marked only by the eerie wail of her turbines and the delayed thunder of a sonic boom. Muffled for stealth, she was a ghost, silent and deadly and beautiful.  
  
Within the soundproofed compartment there was not even these audible distinctions. The two men worked together efficiently, with few words exchanged, patterns recently utilized with others reblending as in the past into that mystic gestalt men hailed as a team.  
  
"Turbos running at optimum," Saint John Hawke reported from the engineering station in the rear of the pressurized cabin. "Fifteen minutes in-flight at angel thirty, and fuel consumption within acceptable levels. She's running good."  
  
"She's always running good," the pilot called back, disdaining his helmet radio. "With multiple redundancy on all systems, I'd be surprised if we ran into any glitches."  
  
Saint John adjusted the fuel flow minutely, eyes skimming the tell-tales. "Green on all panels. Estimated time of rendezvous with Jo puts us twenty minutes ahead of schedule."  
  
"Good. Gives me a bit more time to polish up." Stringfellow stretched comfortably, never happier than when united with the sleek gunship. "Prepare to give me rotors. ... Ready.... Now!" A press of a button and the mighty turbines reversed, dropping the airspeed rapidly to subsonic and nearly blacking out the ship's occupants with the resultant g-force. At the same time, Saint John keyed in a sequence on his own board, powering the large blades. String moved the joystick and pedals, and Airwolf, like a wildcat through as hoop, rotated obediently through a three hundred sixty degree combination slow curl-loop, while Saint John watched the gauges.  
  
"Altitude dropped six feet, four inches on that maneuver," he chided, expertly scanning the panels for warning lights. "Sloppy, String."  
  
"I'll work on it," the younger man returned indignantly. Once more Airwolf rotated on her z- and y-axes, her speed remaining steady. "Better?"  
  
"Gain of one foot, two inches," the acting engineer replied. "And that time you yawed off course nearly three degrees." Though the precision of the maneuvers would have impressed an astronaut, the pilot growled something irritably and began putting the helicopter through a quick succession of stunts that made the armor plate shriek with fatigue; all the while Saint John would call out a steady stream of deviations in a pitying tone. It wasn't until Stringfellow had actually begun to curse that he stuck his tongue firmly in cheek and held his peace.  
  
Saint John ducked his head, keeping his eyes on the gamboling magnetic compass and blinking warning lights even though there was no way the pilot could see the mischievous smile that bowed his lips. With the advantage of history he well knew the slightest hint of flaw in his perfectionist brother would wreck this result; from the twinkle in his gray eyes it was obvious he was enjoying the joke hugely.  
  
"Playtime is over!" he called after a particularly dangerous combination of curl and barrel roll. "We've got just enough time to get to Jo." There was a conspicuous silence from the front. "String?"  
  
The silence stretched for another few seconds while Stringfellow leveled the ship out. Not asking Saint John, he used his own controls to disconnect the blades and bring the engines on line. A press of his thumb and Airwolf accelerated suddenly, soon regaining her former supersonic velocity. It was only when they had climbed back up to 10,000 feet that he spoke again. "Saint John?"  
  
"Hmmmm?" the older man replied absently, flipping through radio frequencies. "Weather report still looks good."  
  
"Saint John, maybe...." He stopped.  
  
Saint John, eyes narrowing, glanced sharply at his brother's helmeted head as if he could penetrate the high-impact plastic with a gaze. "What's the matter?"  
  
There was another pause, and the younger man's gruff baritone grew even deeper. "Maybe we ought to hold Jo back for awhile. She can follow us in once we've neutralized all of Mejindas' defenses."  
  
Saint John blinked; obviously, this was not the response he'd expected to his earlier teasing. "What are you talking about? Since when did you ever doubt your flying? Are you all right?"  
  
There was a hesitant shrug. "Your teammate Rivers doesn't seem to think so. If he's right, we won't be able to help Michael, and we're risking another life unnecessarily."  
  
Amusement was replaced by concern and apology. "Look, String, I was only kidding you about messing up the stunts earlier." He adjusted a button, increasing the clarity on the radar. "I used to tease you unmercifully when we were kids. You never took it to heart before. At least, not much."  
  
"I don't take anything to heart," the other protested.  
  
Saint John smiled again though it was little more than a quirk of the lips. "Right. Seriously, though, that's easily some of the best flying I've ever seen. You ought to know that. Even hotshot Mike Rivers couldn't touch it."  
  
"I'm going to have to do a lot better," the younger man returned softly, "to get us through a Haversham screen."  
  
Saint John leaned forward against his straps, stretching one long arm until he could grasp the lean shoulder. "If it can be done at all, I'm looking at the man who can do it." Beneath his hand, tense muscles tightened once then relaxed.  
  
"You're a whole lot surer than I am right now," Stringfellow replied. "Funny. Whether I can or can't do something never usually enters my mind. I just ... do it."  
  
"Pilot's chief assets," Saint John quoted, releasing his brother and returning his fingers to the computer console, "are his cold nerves and hot hands. You didn't doubt yourself when Mike challenged you, and I know you're not doing it because your big brother teases you." A light blinked. "Imperial VOR coming up; course correction, three point two degrees southeast. What you're doing is second-guessing yourself."  
  
Airwolf dipped barely to the right as Stringfellow realigned her on the proper heading. "Who says that's what I'm doing?" he said neutrally.  
  
Saint John puffed out his cheeks against the helmet. "Well, I know better than to think you're scared of combat flying -- not by nature and not in Airwolf. That means it's something else."  
  
In the pilot's seat, Stringfellow essayed a casual shrug. "I just don't think we ought to risk lives unnecessarily, that's all. You know...." He paused, biting his lip. "I don't even need you along on this run. I may even need the extra maneuverability from the lower weight."  
  
Behind him, Saint John's expression underwent a marked change from amusement to affection to acute worry. "String, four of me isn't going to make that much of a difference to these engines, and you won't have immediate access to all the weapons without a gunner." When there was no answer he unsnapped his harness straps, allowing him to slide forward in his seat and rest both hands on his brother's shoulders from behind. "Since when did you become overprotective?"  
  
"I'm not--!" came the immediate protest, bitten off when Saint John ducked his head over the co-pilot's chair and smiled. "I...." Stringfellow sighed, deeply and from the heart. "Is that what I'm being?"  
  
"Like a mother hen with a load of chicks." The older man laughed easily. He abandoned his seat to slide around the console into the co-pilot's position, stretching his large frame gratefully. "You were the same way every time you had to ferry wounded. Come on, kiddo, tell your dear older and wiser brother all about it."  
  
String shot him a look, an unwilling chuckle emerging. "Wiser, huh? How did you manage that? You've spent the last fifteen years secluded like some kind'a nun."  
  
"And you spent your last fifteen years secluded like some kind of hermit," the older Hawke returned with more gentleness than humor. "Is there any difference?"  
  
The truth of that statement wiped Stringfellow's smile away as if it had never been. "I've done all right," he said defensively, studying the crystal sky for all it was worth.  
  
There was sadness in Saint John's gray eyes, born of a lonely past for them both. He rubbed his brother's hunched shoulder, and from his manner it was clear the contact was as much for himself as the other. "We've got the rest of our lives to make up for any lack either of us might have had," he said with real promise, studying the closed profile of the pilot. "Back in 'Nam, we used to watch each other's back, but you never once tried to kick me out of a fight before. What happened?"  
  
"Dom died."  
  
Encouraging smile fading, Saint John looked straight ahead. "I really miss that old man. I wish I could have seen him again. Just once."  
  
"I'm sorry." Hands clenched on the controls, String turned at last, meeting the other's light eyes. "I wish...."  
  
"Hey!" Saint John squeezed his shoulder tight, giving him a rough shake. "There's nothing for you to be sorry for. Dom wasn't your fault any more than my getting captured by the VC was. When am I going to get that through your hard head?" He slapped his brother on the top of the black helmet. There was no change in the other, so he added, "Or the fact that it doesn't matter any more since I'm back now."  
  
That tiny twinkle reappeared in the younger man's blue eyes blossoming into one of those rare, shy smiles that lit his face from within. "Yeah, you're back now," he said contentedly. Then he sobered. "But we never made them pay for Dom."  
  
Saint John returned the smile, his own happiness overflowing. That last stopped him as well. "We don't know who 'them' is yet," he pointed out. "Once Buchard went down, whoever was attacking us disappeared. I figure Buchard was behind it. Paid for a single hit, maybe."  
  
"They didn't disappear," the gray clad pilot stated flatly. "They're laying low. I can feel it. Do you think it was the Firm?" He hesitated. "How much do you trust Locke? Or Rivers, for that matter."  
  
"I trust them," Saint John returned immediately. "Trust means too much to Mike for him to ever break faith. We ... had a problem with the team once that way -- over trust. Mike exploded."  
  
"Your team," Stringfellow murmured, his lips barely moving.  
  
Sharp ears, however, picked up on the wistful statement. "Not just my team. My brother's team, too. Any time he wants in."  
  
That won a wry half-smile and a glance. "I doubt that." The smile faded. "Maybe Rivers isn't a backstabber," he went on, "but Locke is a spy. That's different from a pilot. Different from us."  
  
Saint John again shook his head. "Jason is perfectly capable of a good lie if necessary. But he's not capable of betraying a friend any more than we are."  
  
"He's a spy," Stringfellow repeated unbendingly. "That means he's capable of anything."  
  
"Would you have said that about this Coldsmith-Briggs you seemed to trust?"  
  
"I never said I trusted him." Stringfellow hesitated. "He did have ... has a sense of honor," he said carefully. "But even Michael can't be trusted all the way. He'll do whatever he thinks he's got to." One side of his mouth twitched sardonically though there was no humor in his eyes. "He believes in too many shades of gray. Locke probably does, too, if he's ... in the business."  
  
"That sounds like an old argument," Saint John said, thoughtfully studying him.  
  
"Yeah." There was a sigh, audible through the helmet. "Real old."  
  
The elder Hawke let that pass. "If there is a conspiracy, Jason isn't in on it. I'd bet my life on it."  
  
"You are."  
  
"Safe bet."  
  
Stringfellow considered this a moment. "Do you think they'll be able to pull off this assignment? Can they get Michael out of that fortress?"  
  
"If anybody can...." Saint John waved a hand. "They're pretty resourceful." He stroked his lean jaw. "I guess you don't know very much about them, do you. In a nutshell, Jason is a Company man, born and bred; he's also ex-Viet Nam, like us. Mike's a terrific pilot -- one of the best -- but he didn't make it to 'Nam."  
  
"Too young?" Stringfellow commented smugly. "I thought so."  
  
"He's two days older than you," the other returned with a devilish smile. "Guess there weren't any winos to bribe in Malibu -- or any big brothers to tag along after." String looked disgusted but had the grace to blush at the reference. "Don't worry about Mike; he's Ivy League and Air Force Academy, but he's flown enough combat to have earned his rank honestly."  
  
"Has he earned your trust honestly? What do you know about him?"  
  
Grinning wider, the older man ticked several points off on his fingers. "He's a loud mouthed hotshot who can fly anything with wings -- including Airwolf. He has a soft spot for old ladies and is a sucker for a pretty face. He's as straight arrow as they come so long as you don't cross him. Enough?"  
  
"You sound like you spent a lot of time with him," the other said with deceptive nonchalance.  
  
Saint John sobered. "Quite a bit. He helped me get back in synch with the world. Fifteen years out is a pretty big leap." He shook his head, tapping the crowded instrument panel. "Computers, VCRs, abortion, string bikinis. The end of the war and the resurgence of patriotism. Politics, costs. Dom gone and you hanging on by a thread...." He swallowed. "It was too much to take in all at once, String. Without help."  
  
"And he gave it to you?"  
  
Saint John nodded. "Mike gave it to me. He's become a good friend."  
  
The younger man glanced at him again, face carefully neutral but eyes very cold. "I met Jason once when they transferred Archangel. We ... didn't get along."  
  
"I wouldn't have thought you would, little brother. Jason exudes authority; you like to bust it in the chops." He chuckled. "I would have liked to see that fight."  
  
String smiled. "There wasn't any fight ... not after his security got there. But...."  
  
"But?" the other prodded.  
  
"But he and Rivers helped get you out." The fine-boned face softened fractionally. "That's something I owe them. Jo, too."  
  
"Enough to trust them?  
  
"Not for a minute."  
  
Saint John laughed. "My brother, the skeptic," though there was a minuscule frown when he considered the younger man. "You never learned to trust anyone, did you."  
  
"I trust you. I trusted Dom."  
  
The ensuing silence was more eloquent. Saint John touched his brother's arm. "Jason, Mike and Jo are groovy...."  
  
"Groovy?!" Stringfellow blurted, a near laugh escaping. "That's one I haven't heard in awhile."  
  
The other man blushed. "Hey, if you were locked up for fifteen years, your lines would be a bit stale, too." They shared a smile, then Saint John went on, "Seriously, String, if you really think whoever got Dom is going to try again, maybe you shouldn't stay by yourself up at the cabin. Until Jason comes up with something ..."  
  
"... or not."  
  
"... you can bunk with me for awhile. Jo took over Dominic's old house but I'm renting one a few blocks away. Got a spare room already set up for you."  
  
String grimaced. "In the middle of Van Nuys? It was hard enough staying there when Dom and I had an early shoot." He hesitated. "You know the cabin is half yours. Granddad left it to the both of us."  
  
"And who gets the only bed in the only bedroom?" Saint John teased. "I've spent several days on that couch already. You may have had it re- upholstered, but it's the same thirty-year-old frame."  
  
"You should know," the other retorted. "You helped Granddad pick it out for Grandma's anniversary."  
  
Saint John regarded him with a surprise. "How did you remember that? You couldn't have been older than three."  
  
"I was old enough to remember you and Granddad sneaking out of the house that morning and leaving me behind."  
  
"Tag-along," the older man said fondly. "Besides, you and Jo were both young enough to go with Dom to the circus that year; I had school." He glanced at the clock on the instrument panel, then sidled back to his own seat and strapped in. "We should be seeing Jo and the Huey any minute." He flicked a switch on his panel. "Taxi, this is Red Dog, Taxi; this is Red Dog. Do you read? Over."  
  
There was a moment's static, then Jo's light soprano floated across the airwaves. "Red Dog, this is Taxi. I'm at rendezvous. Where are you?"  
  
String grinned and keyed his own mike. "Look up." With that, he put the great gunship into a power dive, nose nearly at right-angle to the ground. Airwolf dropped from ten thousand feet to one hundred in less than a minute, then levelled off within eyeshot of the drab green Huey, which hovered squatly in mid-air. Through the tinted glass, both Airwolf crewmen could see a vague figure waving at them.  
  
"Show off!" Jo Santini jeered good-naturedly. "And me stuck with this tub. Want to switch?"  
  
"Let's see if we can get that tub back in one piece," String said, pulling back on the engine control until their velocities matched. "Then we'll talk."  
  
"E.T.A. to target," Saint John broke in more seriously, "thirty minutes. Almost game time, boys and girls."  
  
*** 


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
  
Whistling merrily and making absolutely no attempt at deflecting attention from himself, Mike Rivers retraced his steps down the long hallway to the reception hall, choosing, according to Mina's parting directions, a corridor leading to the left. One of the buckets dangled from his hand, a mop propped across his shoulder, his stroll casual. The cover of a simple minded handyman might be grating on his pride, but from outward appearances he'd managed to submerge ego enough to enjoy the act.  
  
At his side and a pace behind, Jason Locke walked, similarly laden, if less jocular. Dark eyes darted ceaselessly, missing nothing of their journey, taking in the concealed wiring in the walls and alarm boxes installed in the panelling. Long experience had taught him how valuable any scrap of information might be; Rivers, too, though not a covert operative, was an able combatant who had learned the value of knowing the scene of impending battle.  
  
They passed through several chambers where the walls sported rich oils and once even an ancient tapestry. "Bet ol' String would have enjoyed this," Rivers told Locke under his breath. "Those paintings must be worth a fortune."  
  
"Not gonna be worth the price of the canvas," Locke whispered back, "if this place has to go up."  
  
From a comfortably masculine library, the duo arrived at another corridor from the left fork of which came the barely audible sound of rattling pots and pans. One threshold later and the two had reached the kitchen.  
  
"Buenos dias, señor cocinero." Locke, one hand holding mop and the other the flute case, greeted the portly, middle aged man wearing a chef's hat with a humble bob.  
  
Rivers, carrying both buckets, grinned fatuously and made a production of banging the them together. "Have to find the water!"  
  
The cook winced at the clatter, glaring at the incognito pilot. "Use that faucet!" he snapped, jerking his head at a large porcelain tub in the corner. "Get away from my food!"  
  
Mike grinned wider, buckets jangling loudly. "Ooookay-dokey!" Waving at Jason, he sidled around two grim faced, watchful men leaning against a closed door, offering them a sloppy salute as he passed. He reached the sink and began to fill the pails, bobbing his head at the guards all the while.  
  
Trusting the pilot to reconnoiter that section, Jason turned back to the glaring chef, showing his teeth in a weak if friendly smile. "We are here on the orders of...."  
  
"I know," the chef returned gruffly, applying a paring knife to a stack of carrots. "The Señora has already called me. Put your parcel under there ..." He waved a drooping carrot top at a counter against the wall. "... and get out of my kitchen. Now."  
  
"Si! Si!" Jason nodded his head obsequiously, not a hint of offense in either attitude or expression. He deposited the flute case on a little shelf under the spotless formica counter and closed the cabinet door over it, then retreated to the door to await Rivers. From there the entire kitchen could be seen, including the exit to the outdoors. Through one window the garden and high wall were clearly visible, as was Mina Mejindas, who was speaking quietly to a baseball capped man with weed trimmers. The man nodded and gestured to the other workers, who promptly began to file out of the garden.  
  
"Step one," Jason whispered just under his breath, though still earning a sharp look from the cook. He smiled again, a genuine one this time at the sound of Mike's light tenor raised in an off-key, spanish version of Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.  
  
The sound of running water ceased and Rivers recrossed the room. "The buckets are filled!" he called cheerfully, hefting one pail in each hand. "Let's go follow the Señora's orders and begin our scrubbing."  
  
"Go now!" the chef barked, aiming the paring knife menacingly in their direction.  
  
The two went, retracing their route from the kitchen. "Just like Mina said," Rivers commented sotto voce. "Two men carrying AK-47's. We'll have to be on them fast after the charge goes off."  
  
"As long as we can prevent the one in the basement from giving an alarm before we're ready," Jason returned at his side, "I think we'll be able to make it out of here in one piece."  
  
"At least as far as the minefield. Then it's up to the Brothers Hawke."  
  
They fell silent as they entered the library again, adopting bland expressions when they were met by three men all sporting identical khaki uniforms, who were lounging in the expensive leather couches as though they owned the place. "... boring here," somebody was complaining in english as the agents entered.  
  
"Hey, look!" one of them said at the duo's appearance. "Them boys look like Yankees!"  
  
"Definitely Yankees." Another stood, a burly, dark-haired man with a scraggly mustache that trailed over his upper lip. "What are Yankees doing here toting slop buckets?"  
  
"Look like the type to slop the hogs," the first said, laughing gruffly. He was a shorter man than his companion, but stocky, with a florid, clean shaven face and carrot colored hair. Small, pig-like eyes regarded the two with obvious scorn. "Except for the darky there; bopped back to slave days, did ya, colored boy?"  
  
Jason spread his hands wide, bland incomprehension on his face. "Que?"  
  
"Que?" the mustached man mimicked with a short laugh. "You don't speak english, boy? What about your little side-kick, there? Do he speak'a the eeenglesh?"  
  
Addressed, Rivers smiled widely, though anyone who knew him might have noticed the menacing glitter in his eyes. "Are you talking to me, Mr. Army?" he asked innocently.  
  
"He called you Mr. Army," the third, heretofore silent stranger translated from behind a newspaper. "You gonna take him apart for that?"  
  
The mustached man sucked his teeth for a moment, considering the slim Rivers, then Jason. "Just might at that." Stepping closer, he poked one stiffened forefinger into Mike's chest, the force pushing the American pilot back and splashing water out of the bucket onto the expensive rug. "I ain't no Army, blondie," he snarled. "I'm a pilot -- private pilot. You think the Patron's little helicopter squadron flies itself?"  
  
Mike stiffened at the touch, the menace growing. He crouched slightly to place the bucket on the floor, stopping when Jason's fingers dug into his shoulder. "Please excuse my friend's sloppiness, señor," he said, dropping to both knees and dabbing at the rug with a towel. "He is ... just a little slow." He tapped his own temple. "You see?"  
  
"He said blondie is a retard," the third man translated again, still buried in his newspaper.  
  
"A retard?" The redhead scowled disgustedly. "Forget him, B.J. Trashing a retard is supposed to be bad luck."  
  
The men regarded each other for a moment, then the mustache jerked his thumb at the door. "Get out of here before I change my mind."  
  
Jason and Mike smiled again and escaped through the door, feeling those cruel eyes on them the whole way. "Want to change his mind," Rivers muttered once they were out of earshot. "And rearrange his nose while I'm at it."  
  
"'Fraid you'll have to defer pleasure for business," Locke answered, no less angry. "But if we catch 'em in the air...."  
  
"Airwolf will get them instead of us." Rivers shrugged philosophically. "Oh, well. If we wish real hard, maybe they'll give us trouble on the way out."  
  
"Keep a good thought," the black man murmured, picking up his pace.  
  
***  
  
Strong fingers plied the attitude and throttle controls with all the delicacy of a surgeon, making dozens of minute adjustments per minute against the playful crosswinds of the region. As a child, Saint John had teased him about his hands -- though not feminine in the slightest, they were smaller and slim fingered like their mother's, in keeping with the slender build, while Saint John had inherited their father's more rugged good looks, including large bones, muscle and grip. He had delighted, big brother like, in demonstrating his superiority in a myriad contests and battles over their youth, using his greater bulk to advantage. Four years younger and stubborn to a fault, Stringfellow had taken it all personally, and gone out to prove himself, physically and mentally, to be an equal, striving as little brothers will, to match Saint John in any way possible. Though less conspicuously so than his brother, there was power in Stringfellow's wiry muscles, the match of much larger men, and an eventual source of pride and confidence in comparison to anyone and no one at all.  
  
Socially the contest had been less even. Whatever changes Viet Nam had wrought, in high school Saint John had been gregarious and animated and had had every girl in town at his beck and call. Despite their competition, String had minded that least of all. Less outgoing by nature, he'd nevertheless been handsome enough to have attracted his own share of female company, and had thrown himself into his greatest passion -- flying -- with far less distraction. By the time he'd reached sixteen, his skills had surpassed even those of the naturally gifted Saint John Hawke, if not by much. But ... enough to penetrate a Haversham defense screen?  
  
More left pedal ... more right.... The corrections were automatic, requiring little more thought than it took to manipulate parts of his own body. Well, perhaps a little more, for Hawke had been away from the ship long enough for one part of his mind to acknowledge the effort it required to tame the wild creature aptly named Airwolf -- to be aware of every fraction of a degree of change.  
  
For twenty minutes Airwolf hung in mid-air, hovering below the rim of a low hill and out of radar range. Behind, just visible in the corner of Stringfellow's eye, a moderately sized Bell Huey helicopter painted in the dull green of the United States Army squatted on the ground, large blades whirling lazily. Next to Airwolf, Hawke thought, it resembled a fat goose, thick and clumsy, if comfortingly substantial. Comforting, that is, if you were a goose instead of a Hawke.  
  
Humans and machines waited impatiently, tensely, for the moment of truth which was at hand.  
  
"Twelve-forty-five," Saint John reported from the engineering station, giving Stringfellow a single bad moment; he had been expecting Dominic's rough tones. "Time, String." He raised his voice a few decibels. "Jo, are you there?"  
  
"No, I'm in Hawaii," the woman grumbled through the headphone. "Can't you tell how much fun I'm having?"  
  
"Surf a wave for me," Saint John gibed dryly, sounding utterly relaxed. "We're ready to go in."  
  
The Bell's blades beat the air faster, the squat body lifting gently off the ground. "Ready when you are, C.B." Jo called.  
  
"Stay where you are," Stringfellow ordered curtly, experienced eye evaluating the woman's position with a glance. "Another twenty feet and you'll be visible to radar."  
  
Jo sounded puzzled but obediently landed her craft. "What's the scoop? I thought I was supposed to follow your skinny tail like glue."  
  
Saint John snickered at the remark; Stringfellow, long inured to the woman's sisterly teasing, didn't even waste a glare. "I won't be able to concentrate on knocking out the weapons and protecting you at the same time. If we're going to do this, I'm going to need to clean house rather than run interference."  
  
"I was thinking the same thing," Saint John agreed, tapping loudly on his keyboard. "At top speed you're only fifteen minutes from the pickup point. If we make it through, we should be able to shield Jason and Mike until you get there. We'll call you if we need you in early." The emphasis was subtly directed at his brother's head and just as soundly ignored. "Battle computer on-line, all weapons in combat mode."  
  
"Deploy ADF pod," String directed, glancing down once to make sure all needles and gauges were reading at optimum levels.  
  
"ADF pod deployed."  
  
Stringfellow nodded grimly. "We do it then."  
  
"Wait for our signal, Jo," Saint John added to the woman.  
  
"Just make sure your signal isn't a loud boom," Jo shot back with every evidence of the Santini spirit; Stringfellow's heart pinged him once more before he decisively shut if off. "Okay, fellahs. Make it good."  
  
Hawke took a deep breath, his consciousness already submerging into the gestalt being that was man and machine. Ignoring both the farewell and Saint John's cheerful reply, he pulled back on the collective and Airwolf lifted over the rim of the hill like the bird of prey she was. "Turbos," Stringfellow ordered, and pressed the red button on the joystick, activating the twin jets on either side of the ship. Sudden acceleration pushed both pilot and engineer back in their seats as Airwolf shot forward, her nose parallel with the uneven terrain and turbines screaming. She was nearly invisible as she skimmed the ground, targeting the massive black fortress that rose from the sand twenty miles distant.  
  
"Fifty feet," Saint John read off the altimeter. "Speed three hundred knots. You'd better give us a little more altitude so their radar can pick us up."  
  
"Roger." The younger Hawke complied, subconsciously bracing himself as Airwolf nosed straight up into the sky. "I took ack-ack first," he said aloud, actually cheerful now that the action had started. "Then missiles. With Haversham's semi-random patterns, there's no guarantee on the order, though."  
  
In the rear, Saint John grunted his assent. "Without using stealth mode, we're reflecting their radar in all directions."  
  
"We can't sneak in," String replied absently. "We have to take the brunt of the attack."  
  
The air ahead of them suddenly sprouted a half-dozen puffs of what looked like smoke. More man-made storm clouds blossomed and within seconds the sky was dark. "Anti-aircraft," String commented, expertly steering his ship between billows , any one of which might have destroyed a jet fighter. "Right on schedule. It's surrounding the entire perimeter but it doesn't look like it's more than five miles deep. Must be a first line defense only."  
  
"Wow!" Saint John exclaimed, quoting a string of figures off the computer enhanced radar image. "Landscape was blank screen a minute ago, but now it looks like the Mardi Gras down there. I've never seen a ring of defenses that closely packed before."  
  
"You'll find 'em layered out the full twenty miles," String returned lazily, though his eyes glowed. Rather than taking Airwolf above the deceptively harmless looking puffs of smoke, he altered his attitude until the ship was pointed toward the highly visible gun emplacements -- three of them spaced at thousand meter intervals covered his flight corridor. One of the flac clouds mushroomed suddenly in their path, too abrupt to avoid, and there was a loud clatter against the metal skin. Had Airwolf been less superbly designed it might have been all over, but the air intakes were covered with steel mesh, her skin nigh impenetrable. She shuddered, but continued her course.  
  
"Do that too often and we won't have rotors later," Saint John commented unruffledly from the back seat. He considered. "'Course, rolling her in on her belly would cut out their radar advantage." It took a moment for that to sink in, then Stringfellow's lips twitched at memories of other battles fought with this dry humored, nerveless man at his side. He still missed Dom horribly, but the years were already melting away as he and Saint John became what they'd once been: the best aerial combat team in the world.  
  
Silently, Stringfellow began his run. He squeezed the trigger on the stick and Airwolf's 30 millimeter cannon roared, the chain guns leaving a trail of tracer that split the sky. Several figures could be seen fleeing the emplacements as one by one the bullets struck home and the weapons disintegrated into metal shards. The anti-aircraft fire ceased, the dark clouds ever so slowly beginning to dissipate in the immediate area, though the more distant guns continued to spew out their threat if too far away to make a difference.  
  
"One down," the older Hawke brother muttered. He made to say something else than closed his mouth with an audible snap. "First salvo. SAMs. Six fired simultaneously from one position range fifteen miles, heading from two-seven-oh degrees." He paused. "We've been acquired. More launchers appearing on the scope; they must have been underground. Two units in close proximity; bearing dead ahead."  
  
"Let me have a Shrike," the pilot ordered, snapping his helmet visor into place. The automatic targeting system came on-line at once, the computers giving him a clear-as-day view of the second grouping of missile launchers one mile distant. He focussed on them and the computers took their mark, using the movement of his own pupil for direction. A touch of the trigger and the nuclear tipped Shrike missile was off. He didn't tarry to watch the miniature mushroom cloud rise from the sand; he didn't have to. He knew without knowing that the missile had been aimed true and wasted no more attention on it than that.  
  
At the same moment the heavy armor plating rang as something struck it, the great gunship actually swaying under the multiple impacts. String put her in a zig-zag pattern and the clanging ceased. "Fifties," Saint John reported almost unnecessarily. "Probably covered by the ack-ack. They can hurt us if enough of 'em hit the right spot, and I know they'll take Jo down."  
  
Blue eyes narrow, Hawke began a high sweep, being careful to avoid the fading flac clouds, trusting his brother to warn him of the already- launched missiles' approach. He spotted the fifty-caliber guns almost immediately, two of them mounted on the backs of converted jeeps. "Somebody's been watching old Rat Patrol episodes," he commented with grim humor.  
  
"We used to watch old Rat Patrol episodes," the older man reminded him with a grin in his voice. "Besides, it is a good idea to keep them mobile. Missiles closing," he added almost inconsequentially. "Forty-five seconds to impact."  
  
Rather than beginning evasion procedures, Hawke concentrated on the speeding jeeps. From where he sat he could see the two-man team in each, their tan colored uniforms blending them in with the similarly painted vehicles. Lips tightening, he again triggered the chainguns, sending two columns of bullets strafing the first vehicle. It was a direct hit; the jeep exploded as the gas tank was ruptured, catching the second in the fireball. It careened wildly before upending in a ditch.  
  
"Good boy," Saint John acknowledged absently. "Enhanced imaging showing no more of them, but the missiles are twenty seconds and closing."  
  
"Radar or heat seeking?" String asked, voice growing almost supernaturally calm. He might have been discussing the weather.  
  
There was a brief pause as the older man consulted the computer. A low buzzer gave Stringfellow Hawke his answer before the other spoke. "Cannot identify; must be a hybrid. Faster than normal, too. Jamming radar, ion suppressors on." A raucous squeal sounded in the earphones, the bleedoff from the electromagnetic pulse Airwolf was giving off. "No change. Releasing chaff, preparing Sunburst."  
  
Stringfellow pulled back on the cyclic and throttle, easing the sleek black craft higher. She rose slightly, accelerating again, her angle giving the pilot a brief view of a bright grouping also changing its direction, six aerial torpedoes travelling at more than twice the speed of sound.  
  
"Chaff released." From under her belly, Airwolf expelled a cloud of foil designed to confuse enemy radar, even as she began flying a zig-zag pattern, taking her off the direct route. Ignoring the distraction, the missiles punched through the cloud as though it weren't there, sluggishly correcting their own course with each alteration in Airwolf's.  
  
"No good." Saint John shook his head. "They're not radar guided. Heat seekers and closing fast. Ejecting Sunbursts." He pressed another button on the counter-measures board and twin panels opened, one on either side of Airwolf's black skin. Two thermal generators fittingly named Sunbursts dropped straight downward a series of feet, floating lightly on the breeze, followed by two more, than two again. Suddenly they erupted, magnesium bright, at fifteen hundred degrees, hot enough to drown out the heat signature of Airwolf's own engines.  
  
"We're too low," Saint John reported, his breath catching him short when Hawke executed a high speed course change, directing the craft on a nearly perfect vertical course. "Got only one; five reacquiring."  
  
"We need more maneuvering room," String grunted, the extra g's a weight on his own chest.  
  
"Mach one," Saint John read out. "One point two ... one point four. Altitude angel ten. String, they have us!"  
  
No, they didn't. With less than a hundred feet to spare, Airwolf flipped over in midair, her short curling loop taking her in a screaming perpendicular dive, her armor plates groaning their displeasure. Caught out, the five dark projectiles hurtled past, their velocity carrying them miles beyond the fleeing craft.  
  
"Nice," Saint John murmured, the grin plain in his voice. "Preparing another wave of Sunbursts."  
  
"Wait until they're closer," Stringfellow called back, speaking from two- plus years worth of experience. "Don't give them too much time to think things over."  
  
"Roger." Saint John counted as the digital gauge computed the distance in miles then feet. "Missiles within range; thirty seconds to impact."  
  
"Hold on...." Hawke waited, instincts doing his calculation for him. They were nearly at ground level now. "Ready.... Now!"  
  
"Sunbursts away," Saint John said even as String pulled them out of their suicide dive. They could vaguely hear a roar behind the craft, then, suddenly, radar images on every panel flared and blanked out leaving Saint John with only the camera images and String the windscreen. "Hey! What happened?! Blast!"  
  
"We're probably being jammed," String returned matter of factly, narrowed eyes glued on the terrain zipping by. Can you tell if we got all the missiles?"  
  
"Aft camera shows two trails. They're well designed." Saint John paused, his voice growing grim. "You'd better take us back up. You can't fly this low without radar." His brother ignored him and Airwolf raised not one inch. "String!"  
  
Using senses that had baffled the so-called experts back in the Army, Stringfellow Hawke executed the dry canyons and rocky outcroppings making up this section of Mexico, sometimes with no more than inches margin on either side. He didn't think, didn't plan his moves, simply divorced his cognitive processes from his reflexes and became one with the hurtling bullet that was Airwolf. Suddenly a box canyon loomed dead ahead. No way out ... and just what he was looking for. "Rotors, my command!" he yelled, holding his speed.  
  
"Ready."  
  
"Rotors!" He cut the jets with a touch even as the powerful blades began to beat the air, their lift picking Airwolf up bodily hundreds of feet in mere seconds. Synchronously, the ship dropped hundreds of knots velocity, again allowing the missiles to speed past. For Hawke, the terminus of the canyon was suddenly there ... then it wasn't, for Airwolf was nose up, facing the crisp, blue Mexican sky. Audible even through the plating came the sound of high explosives disintegrating solid granite.  
  
"You did it!" Saint John Hawke exclaimed, voice full of astonished pride. "Good work, kid!"  
  
String turned his head slightly, not even his profile visible to the other man, but the light of triumph in his own eyes was beautiful to behold. "Thanks. Ready to go back for the rest?"  
  
"The rest?" The elder brother's gladness faded. "What's next? THORs? ICBMs?" He got his answer a moment later when String suddenly banked the ship just ahead of two brilliant almost ultra-violet beams that split the air directly ahead. "Lasers?" he asked incredulously. "It's like.... What did Mike call it? A video game. What's this guy guarding, anyway?"  
  
"Whatever it is," the younger man returned grimly, "it's worth somebody spending three-quarters of a billion dollars to defend." Airwolf resumed her zig-zag evasive pattern, staying low. "Did you see where they were located?" he asked, circling a particularly large rocky outcropping and resuming his course on the far side.  
  
Again Saint John plied the computer keyboard, then shook his head. "Radar is still out. Life signs garbled. Thermal scan...." He waited, studying the monitor, then sighed. "Two sources, but whatever they're using, disengaged it's throwing out no heat at all. Thought I saw a flash from that embankment to the west--" He stopped, words cut off when Airwolf veered sharply, allowing two luminescent streaks go by. "More missiles?" he guessed mildly, slapping the useless radar; one panel lit on Stringfellow's board, foggy and showing only shadows. "Got aft radar back. Two missiles, closing from one thousand yards. Another Sunburst?"  
  
"No. Turbos." That taciturn reply was preceded by another burst of acceleration that might have blacked both men out save for the g-suits they wore. Like a living thing Airwolf returned to nearly ground level, again following the terrain at nearly the speed of sound. On her tail, two more of the hybrid missiles tracked, their dull painted, torpedo bodies closing inexorably on the elegant death machine. They were within a few hundred yards of the embankment Saint John had indicated earlier when four things happened more or less simultaneously: another of those deadly laser beams flashed out from the deceptively innocent hill, String yelled, "Rotors!" and Airwolf was again headed skyward. Once more too sluggish to correct their course in time, the missiles were past and striking ground.  
  
"Good," Saint John muttered as screens on several panels flickered back to life. "They must have combined their jamming equipment with the laser location. We have full radar capability again."  
  
"Any clue where the other laser system is?" the other asked. That alone was enough to prevent them calling in Jo yet.  
  
A pause. "No."  
  
A slow smile curled Hawke's stern mouth. "Then we're gonna have to bait them a bit." He pulled back on the stick, assuming an altitude of one hundred feet. "How far are we from the fortress?"  
  
"Three miles. Close."  
  
"Not close enough." Hawke suddenly hit the turbos and Airwolf screamed upward, banking to starboard just ahead of another of those ominous violet beams. An induced yaw and the laser again missed, sizzling the air under her belly. "Targeted yet?" he asked with some hint of agitation in his voice for the first time.  
  
Before the other man could answer Airwolf shuddered, a neat hole penetrating the bulletproof glass at an angle and slicing through the port fuselage as though passing through warm butter. Air screamed through the opening, and both men had to swallow hard to equalize the pressure on their eardrums. "Oh, my--" Saint John whispered, staring at the hole. "That was too close."  
  
"Yep," his brother acknowledged, sounding shaken even to himself. Blue eyes flicked once to the hole in the glass, calculating the angle that had missed his head by less than six inches, then he forcibly dismissed it. No sense worrying over might-have-beens. There was enough reality to concern them all. "I hope you got us a target that time."  
  
Saint John took a deep breath, letting it out noisily into the mike. "Computer tracked the energy emission. They're hiding in another embankment one-four-nine degrees relative, distance approximately twenty- five, sixty-one yards. Dug in good, from the readings."  
  
"Make it a Shrike." The black helmet screen snapped down into place over glittering blue eyes, a targeting box appearing on the inside of the helmet. Eyes narrowed as Stringfellow Hawke visually located his target on the simu-display, the internal tracking device again following every movement of his pupils. Target and bullseye came together and Hawke squeezed gently on his trigger; there was a soft plopf, the sound of a nuclear tipped rocket being released.  
  
"We're out'a here," Stringfellow muttered, nosing once more to the sky. Seconds later, the ship shuddered in the shock wave of a powerful explosion, and an entire section of the Mexican hillside joined Airwolf's flight as a cloud of mildly radioactive dust. The purple razor was not seen again.  
  
"Fortress dead ahead," Saint John reported, easily following their progress on his monitor. He turned a dial on his comm board. "Jo?"  
  
"Right here!" came the woman's relieved voice. "Are you two all right?"  
  
Saint John chuckled, a cheerful note in his voice. "We're fine," he answered heartily. "We're outside the Casa's walls but and there's no sign of Jason or Mike on the long-range cameras yet. Begin your run but be careful; I think we took out the trash but we might have missed something."  
  
"We didn't miss anything," the younger brother commented from the front.  
  
Saint John shrugged. "Be careful anyway, Jo."  
  
"You better believe it!" With that fervent if slightly nervous vow the woman signed off, appearing on their restored radar four minutes later, while Airwolf hovered precisely one mile from the great black granite fortress that had once been the product of Spanish religious oppression and now posed a threat to the entire free world.  
  
"Hey, String?"  
  
"Mmmm?"  
  
There was a tiny pause. "You did good, little brother."  
  
"Yeah," Stringfellow Hawke acknowledged, victory tasting very sweet.  
  
***  
  
Simultaneous with the beginning of Airwolf's perilous battle, Mike Rivers and Jason Locke had returned to the music room, locating the concealed entrance to the tunnel only with difficulty.  
  
"I'm telling you, it was seven paces to the hatch," Rivers hissed from his position at the door. "You're only taking six."  
  
"I figure my stride is longer than Mrs. Mejindas'," Locke returned, also keeping his voice low. "It should be right in here."  
  
Rivers threw up his hands. "Did you get a look at her legs? Man, those legs go up to her neck! Trust me, man, take the seven paces like I'm saying."  
  
Locke shot him a skeptical look but obediently returned to his starting point and took the directed seven paces forward before dropping to his knees. Questing fingers examined the patch of carpet right under him, his dark face lined with concentration. Suddenly, his face cleared. "Got it."  
  
"Told you so." Mike cast a last look into the hall before joining his partner. He swept up their hidden bag with one hand even as the trapdoor swung open silently, exposing the pitch black, cavernous opening at their feet. "After you, pard."  
  
"Afraid of the dark, Mike?" the black man taunted, swinging his legs down.  
  
"Afraid of what lurks in the dark," Rivers responded mildly. "Snakes, spiders, man-eating cockroaches...." But he was already talking to himself, for Locke had disappeared into the well. There was a pause and a scuffling sound, then a light flashed on, revealing both man and rough-hewn walls.  
  
"Come on in," Jason called quietly. "The water's fine." He waited until Rivers had hopped lightly to the floor, then gave the trap door a light push. Counterbalances swung it up, locking it back in place with a nearly inaudible click. Jason swung the flashlight around, peering in both directions down the remarkably long if narrow walk space. "Which way do we go?"  
  
Mike pointed to a white chalk mark scribbled onto the wall. An arrow. "At a guess, I'd say we go that way."  
  
"Good guess," the other returned dryly. He led off, the two traversing the narrow passage single-file -- it was barely wide enough for a man to slide through sideways -- both having to crouch to avoid hitting their heads. It stretched about a hundred feet, curving all the while, then dropped almost without warning, becoming crude steps leading farther down into the earth. Quite suddenly, the passage ended.  
  
"Hit a wall," Jason commented, still using hushed tones. "This must be it." Indeed it was. He swung the flashlight around, following another chalk arrow to a barely seen metal ring stuck into the rock. He grasped it and turned off the flash, both he and Rivers drawing their weapons. "Ready?"  
  
"Ready," came the immediate response from behind. There was a low grunt of effort, then a sliver of light penetrated the shaft. Jason hitched one eye around the opening and withdrew his head. "It's clear but I can hear people talking at one end of the hall. It curves in the other direction; that must be where the cells are."  
  
"We'd better get Archangel first," Mike grunted. "Once we hit the computer control, the alarm could go up."  
  
"I agree." He stepped out into the surprisingly bright corridor, Mike behind him, leaving he secret door cracked in case they needed a bolthole. Silently the two men padded around the curve, flattening against the wall when they came into view of what had to be the dungeon area judging by the line of cells on the visible boundary. A bored looking guard stood casually between two cell doors, an AK-47 swung over his shoulder. Beard- shadowed jaws chewed placidly, and dark tobacco juices escaped one of his lips; he calmly wiped it on his sleeve.  
  
"Yuck," Mike breathed. He squared his shoulders and boldly strode forward, barking in spanish, "Report!"  
  
As any good soldier would, the chewer snapped to attention, eyes forward. "Sir!" That was as far as he got. Mike came into view then and the man's eyes grew wide, his mouth opening for a yell. He never made it. Body coiled like a well-tuned spring, Mike snapped his right fist forward, catching his opponent in the diaphragm. The man doubled over, spewing tobacco juice and gasping for breath. Mike followed up with a lovely uppercut, and the guard dropped, unconscious before he hit the ground.  
  
"Yuck!" Mike repeated, staring in disgust at the wet brown stains on his already dirty clothes. "That's gross."  
  
Jason brushed past him. "Archangel?" he called urgently though still keeping his voice low. "Are you in here? Michael!"  
  
Four heads appeared at three tiny barred windows, only one of them sandy blond. "Who is...? Locke? Jason Locke?"  
  
Jason leaped to the blond, squinting into the dark cell. "Michael! Good. We're here to get you out."  
  
"We? Is Hawke...?" He stopped, sadness shading his bright blue eye. "I guess that would be Saint John Hawke flying Airwolf, wouldn't it."  
  
"On their way. Both of them." He interrupted the other's puzzled interrogative by stepping away from the door. Mike, who had been searching the guard, uttered a low cry of triumph and crossed to them, a bunch of keys in one hand.  
  
"Time for our Archangel to fly free," he chortled, inserting the key into the lock. "Long time no see, buddy!"  
  
The door swung open and Michael Coldsmith-Briggs the Third emerged, one hand raised to protect his eyes from the light. He was barely recognizable as the sophisticated and perfectly groomed Deputy Director of Operations for the Firm. Though he still wore his distinctive glasses with one lens blackened, a long, fair beard now covered most of his face. Blond hair, too, had grown wild, trailing down over his collar. Rather than the traditional white suit, he sported tattered khaki fatigues and old sneakers, both of which were several sizes too large.  
  
"You look like a poor man's Grizzly Adams," Mike commented, unable to hide his smirk.  
  
Archangel glowered, having to squint against the bright flourescents. "You should have seen me before my weekly need-it-or-not bath," he snapped back, brushing wavy bangs out of his eyes. "Hello, Rivers. Haven't seen you since you left the Airwolf project."  
  
"You'll be seeing a lot more of me," Rivers returned cryptically, sweeping up the guard's Kalashnikov and handing it to the freed man. "Come on, we've got to pick up a lady and take out this complex all before Airwolf gets here."  
  
"Wait!" Michael grabbed his arm, spreading his other one to stop Jason. "There are three other prisoners here, all top American scientists, all for sale. We have to get them out, too."  
  
"Already on the program." Again Mike plied the keys while Archangel spoke to the other prisoners, giving them no more information than that, if they did as they were told, they were going to be rescued. The doors opened and three other men emerged, all equally as scraggly as Michael, also glare blinded as though having spent a long time in the dark. Archangel herded them against the wall and gestured them to silence.  
  
Making utterly no noise, Jason and Mike made their way back up the corridor toward the tiled chamber ahead. Voices could plainly be heard talking, a dozen computer screens adding a blue glow to the sterile white tiles. Peeking around the entrance, Jason could see four people working, two men and two women, all semitic looking and all clothed in lab coats. Jason held up three fingers to Rivers, counting. One ... two....  
  
On three, the two men leaped across the threshold, leveling their plastic guns at the computer operators before any of them even knew they were there. Gaping stupidly, the scientists stared, then obeyed Jason's curt command, offered in arabic, for them to stand with their hands on their heads.  
  
"This is almost too easy," Mike muttered, gesturing the prisoners against the wall. "Doesn't feel right."  
  
"That's because we're dealing with non-professionals," Locke told him as he passed. "Don't worry, I've a feeling we'll be getting plenty of action up stairs." While Mike held the prisoners at bay, he extracted another lump of plastic explosive from his shirt, dividing it into three portions and inserting timers from a little box at his belt. He placed the deceptively harmless looking clay on several of the instrument panels, and rejoined his companions in the corridor. "Three minutes. That'll give us enough time to get out of here before the room goes up."  
  
Mike checked his watch. "Two minutes thirty before the kitchen goes. Come on; we have to be ready."  
  
They herded the white-clad scientists ahead of them back to where Michael waited with the erstwhile prisoners. The blond agent's face remained professionally impassive when they appeared, lighting up when he recognized the one bringing up the rear. "Ah, Dr. Steiner." He greeted the middle- aged, pudgy man by bringing up his weapon until it was neatly inserted in one of the man's wide nostrils. "I was hoping I'd see you again."  
  
Steiner froze, fleshy lips forming a terrified "O," brown eyes fixed on the other. "I-I...."  
  
"Don't say it," the man code named Archangel said, voice full of menace. "My first and greatest desire is to bind and gag you, and leave you on top of one of the charges." Steiner gulped, and Archangel smiled, slow and deadly. "But it occurs to me you might know things I might want to know. Things you'll be very willing to tell me once we get back to the United States. Isn't that right?"  
  
Steiner made to nod, a difficult action when one has the bore of an assault rifle up one's nostril. He contented himself with gulping again instead.  
  
Michael took this as assent. "One peep out of you," he cautioned, raising two fingers to his lips, "and I get to perform what becomes my life's ambition. Understand? Good." The weapon was lowered and Steiner gasped, his legs nearly spilling him to the floor. Archangel swung him backward into the waiting arms of one of the prisoners, a gaunt man whose pasty coloring told of a much longer stay than Michael's. "Watch him, Dox," he ordered. "If he moves, you know what to do."  
  
"It would be a pleasure," the bearded man replied, flexing his fingers in Steiner's direction.  
  
Moving rapidly the group retreated to the tunnel's one branch corridor. It led to some stairs and an empty basement, then to some more stairs and a closed door behind which the sound of rattling pots could be heard. "One minute, fifteen," Rivers said. He turned at a touch on his elbow to find Archangel regarding him quizzically.  
  
"How were you planning on getting us out?" the Deputy Director asked. "I've been given to understand that this entire area is protected by a Haversham defense screen at the perimeter."  
  
"You were given right," Rivers told him. "Airwolf is coming in for us. I understand baby brother is supposed to be able to pull off an extraction like this."  
  
Under the blond fringe, Michael's brow wrinkled. "Baby brother? Saint John Hawke?"  
  
"Nah." Mike waved casually with his oddly shaped pistol. "Saint John's kid brother. He's doing the flying this time out."  
  
"You mean Stringfellow Hawke?!"  
  
"None other."  
  
Michael's face blanked, then a huge grin broke through the shaggy beard, the blue eyes glowing bright. "Hawke ... Stringfellow is alive?! And risking Airwolf in a hairbrained scheme like this?" The last was intended to be censorious but the disapproval was spoiled by the man's obvious happiness.  
  
Rivers winked. "What kin ah tell ya, pard," he drawled in an exaggerated John Wayne accent. "That boy is plumb loco." He scowled. "Which doesn't say much for the rest of us, does it."  
  
"Ten seconds," Jason hissed. "We're going now!"  
  
Precisely ten seconds later, the kitchen blew up.  
  
*** 


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7  
  
Left behind by her colleagues, Jo Santini spent the next fifteen minutes staring at the radio as though by sheer will she could force it to activate. Though no combat pilot, she was wise enough to know better than to initiate contact with the Hawke's; in the middle of aerial battle, a distraction to either one of them could well prove fatal. No, radioing them would be a bad idea. And without weapons and in this tub of a chopper, she couldn't even contribute to the fight. There really was nothing for her to do but wait.  
  
Frustrated, she chewed her nails one by one, wishing for the first time in her life that she smoked. At least then she'd have something to do while she waited. Yeah, stain my teeth, smell up my hair and commit slow suicide all at the same time, she thought sourly, deciding to buy a pack of gum when she got back instead. She'd look like a cow chewing the stuff but at least she wouldn't die of cancer.  
  
"I hope this is worth ruining my manicure over," she grumbled aloud, glaring at the chipped nail polish and torn cuticles that had cost her forty dollars only last week. "Come on, guys, if you don't hurry I'm going to be starting on my toenails next. Blech." But even this dire threat proved ineffectual and the radio remained silent. Jo leaned her head back and shut her eyes, forcing herself to breathe deeply and allowing her mind to drift. She still couldn't believe that that was actually Stringfellow up there flying Airwolf! The explosion was so fresh in her mind, the image of the young man being flung backward by the fireball too recent. He had been comatose for nearly a week, burned and bruised, bleeding from a dozen fragment wounds, and ... She didn't want to say it even now. ... dying.  
  
Even more vivid was her slow-motion flight to Uncle Dom's side. Contrary to expectations, he hadn't died immediately. An explosion is a perverse thing; it can blow you apart or it can blow you away, the latter having been true in Santini's case. Shot forty-two feet, according to a morbidly detail oriented paramedic, Dominic had come to rest on the tarmac awash in flames but more or less in one piece ... more or less. His limbs had been mangled where he'd hit, and she hadn't even been sure how much of his right leg had been left at all. Everett Logan, Santini Air's ex-part time mechanic, had been the one who had run up with a blanket, smothering the fire and taking charge until the ambulance had arrived, while Jo, too numbed by the tragedy to even think, had concentrated on talking to him in a low, quivering voice to try and defer the onset of shock.  
  
She shuddered, remembering his glazed brown eyes staring up at her from an almost unrecognizable face, seared lips opening and closing wordlessly for several seconds until with great effort they came together to form one word. "String."  
  
"He'll be all right," she remembered choking out, believing the younger man to be already dead despite Everett's dubious assurance. "So will you. You have to be!"  
  
They hadn't let her see him in the trauma unit -- he'd lived long enough to make it that far, at least. According to a brusque hospital administrator in a business suit, it had been the shock that had taken him even more than the burns and fractures. He'd passed away suddenly, his sixty-two year old heart simply ... stopping. The funeral had been a closed casket affair on the mortician's recommendation; she'd agreed. No one needed to remember Uncle Dom the way he looked after the blast. She was glad String didn't. She wished she didn't.  
  
She also wished she knew who had done that to him. And to String. The police had no clues and offered no theories, and even that man in the white clothes, Michael, hadn't been able too offer anything. According to him, the Company -- the Firm, he'd called it -- was perfectly happy to leave Airwolf right where it was, where they could use it -- and Hawke -- and where the Pentagon, National Security Agency, F.B.I. and assorted other bureaus couldn't. The Company had clashed with String on a hundred occasions, but according to Michael there had been nothing recent.  
  
She opened her eyes to find herself staring at the airspeed indicator, which even now sat at zero. Could the assassination have had anything to do with Saint John's imminent return? After all, everything went up not long after that Buchard jerk had pulled Saint John Hawke away from the Cambodians. She'd asked Michael that but even he couldn't find a connection. He had promised to continue looking, however, and she believed him.  
  
"Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III." Feeling itchy, she rose to wander the helicopter, smiling as she repeated the name. It was quite a mouthful, though its formality seemed to suit him somehow. And it certainly beat a name like Stringfellow! She'd liked Michael on sight even after finding out who he was. The elegant white clothes and courtly ways were undeniably charming, his intelligence and sense of competence inducing trust. She grinned to herself. "All that and he's cute, too. Could a girl ask for more?"  
  
A scowl marred her smooth forehead. More, maybe, like the name of a murderer?  
  
Biting her lip hard, she slipped out of the cockpit into the spacious cargo bay. In previous use as a troop carrier, the helicopter was designed to hold many more than the three men she was going in for. She concentrated, forcing herself to see the steel constructed body rather than that lingering, ghastly sight of her uncle and her childhood friend lying on the concrete, forcing herself to contemplate the happinesses following the funeral. After all, Saint John Hawke was back from the war after fifteen years, alive and well!  
  
A happiness, indeed, and she embraced it gratefully. She'd heard the horror stories about POWs left too long in enemy hands -- had seen Holocaust movies in abundance -- and wept to think that Saint John was suffering a like fate. She didn't know what she'd expected when they went into Burma after him. A zombie, a semi-articulate walking skeleton, perhaps. That he'd emerged from his experience a whole man, she'd considered a grace that nearly offset the pains of losing String and Uncle Dom.  
  
There was history between them, after all. Saint John had been so handsome as a teenager! And had had the privilege, such as it was, of being her very first crush. She chuckled, remembering his reaction to that! He'd been fourteen when he and String had moved in with Uncle Dom, and she had just been reaching an age when girls start to notice boys. Visiting Uncle Dom the summer after the death of the Hawke parents, she'd exercised her new-found feminine license by hanging around Saint John constantly, always with an excuse, however lame, to play shadow. Saint John had taken it all with remarkable composure for an adolescent, enduring Stringfellow's childish teasing over her with little more acknowledgment than to occasionally cuff the younger boy's ears when he got out of hand. She hadn't cared -- she'd swatted String for it herself (secretly relieved that he never hit her back), mooned over Saint John, and slowly grown into a woman. Of course, by then Saint John was long gone.  
  
But Saint John was back! Older, perhaps, and more worn, but still the foster cousin she'd adored as a child. Childish crushes long gone and adult affection firmly in place, she allowed herself to dwell on him as he'd looked only hours earlier, back at the cabin. There was leanness where powerful muscles had once covered the big bones, and the thin face was only now starting to fill out, shadows sobering once-dancing eyes. There was no light-hearted merriment left, none of the unguarded accessibility that had once endeared him to her even if his shields weren't so iron-clad as String's. Well, not on the surface, anyway. He wasn't the same man that had gone to Viet Nam so long ago, but he could be again. She was confident that, given a little time and motherly nurturing, he'd break out of the cage those fifteen years had woven and become the Saint John Hawke she'd thought gone forever.  
  
She kicked an empty oil can with the toe of her boot, sending it careening off the Huey's closed hatch with a dull clang, the noise breaking through her happy reminisce and sobering her again. Worry chased joy over the second man in her family equation. Maybe Saint John would recover from his lengthy ordeal -- and she couldn't bear to entertain the possibility that he would not -- but would Stringfellow ever be as he was before the war? There was comfort to be found in the knowledge that, contrary to her prior belief, he was alive and recovering from the blast that had killed Santini. He'd been injured every bit as badly as Uncle Dom and might have succumbed himself had he not had the strength of youth on his side. But that was only physical; emotional recovery was a whole other matter as Marella had pointed out.  
  
Four years ago she'd been on one of her rare visits to Uncle Dom, and he'd taken her up to visit String at the cabin. Reserved as always, Hawke had suffered her to hug him hello though the tenseness of rejection had communicated itself through her brief touch. He'd cooked dinner -- fish -- for the three of them and even asked her politely about her new job ferrying copters across the country, though she could tell his mind was far removed from the answers she was giving. Dom's happy chatter covered the young man's characteristic silences as a rule, but this time there was something more and she could tell. She'd asked Dom about it as soon as String had gone out for wood for the fire.  
  
Santini had tried to brush it off, only relenting when he'd realized the seriousness of her concern. "Awww, honey, you'll have to excuse String tonight. He's been in Washington all week with one of those veteran's associations -- you know, the ones that investigate MIA rumors?"  
  
"Any word of Saint John?" she'd asked more out of politeness than hope. Back then she'd been as certain as everyone else that the elder Hawke brother was long dead.  
  
His sad headshake was almost unnecessary. "Turns out the photos were all doctored -- some merc trying to scam funds for a phony mission. One of the guys there told me String broke his jaw for him." String had returned then with an arm full of wood and they'd broken off the conversation at once, but it had occurred to her then that she'd instinctively avoided meeting the young man's eyes all evening, and she could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen a genuine smile on his face since he'd returned from Viet Nam. When he walked back into the room she made a point to look directly at him.... It was a long time before she ever did that again. Desolation could be even more terrible to share than hatred.  
  
But wouldn't that change now that Saint John was back? String had always been serious, even as a kid, but he'd known how to laugh back then, and had had a mischievous streak that invariably meant fun. Put him and Saint John together and they could make her giggle for hours on end! Wasn't happiness something you could relearn?  
  
She climbed back into her seat, leaning back against the head rest. Of course, it was, she decided firmly. A little maternal prodding would do wonders in that direction, too. "You'll see, Stringfellow Hawke," she said resolutely. "See if you can resist the combination of your brother being back and the Santini charm ... another Santini's charm for long." She clenched a small hand. "If Uncle Dom could break through that shell of yours, I can too. ... Uh ... can't I?" But to that there really wasn't an answer; maybe once they'd all had a chance to heal. Yeah. Maybe.  
  
A muscle cramped in her back, the result of too much unrelieved tension. She groaned and jabbed at it energetically, actually glad for an excuse to banish her thoughts but no happier to be left with her present worries. Had they made it through the defenses? If this Haversham screen was as deadly as they all said, could even Airwolf make it through? What if Mike was correct -- what if String wasn't recovered enough to handle the action? The past ambushed her again, a bloodless gray face on hospital issue linens, a body so damaged that death had seemed inevitable. A weak voice begging her to continue the search for Saint John....  
  
"Oh, String," she whispered, feeling a stinging behind her eyelids. "You've just got to make it! You both do. I don't want to lose you both again!"  
  
She continued her massage and her back was just starting to loosen when there was a loud squawk from the radio and Saint John's hearty hail came through. "Jo?"  
  
She leaped for the mike, snatching up the headset and turning the selector until she could hear through it. "Right here!" she called, practically singing with relief. They'd made it! "Are you two all right?"  
  
Saint John chuckled, and Jo thought he sounded almost obscenely smug considering the circumstances. "We're fine. We're outside the Casa's walls but there's no sign of Jason or Mike yet. Begin your run but be careful; I think we took out the trash but we might have missed something."  
  
She was cheered to hear String's voice chipping in with real confidence, "We didn't miss anything." She put her hands on her hips. Well. Good. So long as he was sure.  
  
Jo took another calming breath and was pleased to see that by some miracle her hands were not shaking. It wasn't a lack of courage -- that she had and to spare from both the Italian and Irish sides of her family. But truth be told she was no combat pilot and couldn't help the sick dread that never seemed to plague the rest of them. She hated flying into combat -- hated the fear that choked away her breath and made her palms sweat until she could barely work the controls. That other woman, Caitlin, had done it for longer than Jo. Had she felt what Jo felt? Those few times Jo had talked to her, she'd seemed more excited about flying missions than nervous. Admittedly, Caitlin rarely piloted Airwolf in these situations, having been more proficient on the weapons board. And Caitlin had been a cop first. She must have had combat training in some form.  
  
But Jo wasn't a cop. She wasn't a soldier. She was a chopper jockey who just happened to be a very good flier. And Jo Santini was quite naturally afraid. "Not that it's going to stop me," she gritted between clenched teeth.  
  
"Be careful anyway, Jo." Saint John added casually as though hearing her, and she could imagine his affectionate expression when he said it.  
  
"You better believe it!" She tried to match his light tone, the apprehension bleeding through anyway. She touched the controls, increasing the rotor speed smoothly. Though the Huey was clumsy compared to Airwolf it was no worse, really, than the Sikorsky she'd flown to String's cabin. In truth, the maneuvering controls were somewhat more sensitive. The Huey lifted almost gracefully into the sky, and Jo was suddenly very aware of the moment she crested the concealing hill and became visible to enemy radar. If String was wrong -- if there was any defenses left covering her route.... One single missile would reduce this clumsy tub she was flying to powdered metal. Well, she probably wouldn't even know what hit her. She supposed there was some comfort to be found in that. Somewhere.  
  
Precisely ten minutes later she visibly sighted the hovering black death machine that was Airwolf, having followed their radar image for much longer. Beyond the gunship was the great black fortress called Casa del Suerte. Jo took a deep breath, feeling that muscle in her back unkink suddenly. They made it! The worst was over!  
  
Or so she thought.  
  
***  
  
Jason Locke opened the door slowly and peeked into the wreck that had only seconds before been a large, somewhat pleasant kitchen. He stepped out cautiously, Rivers at his shoulder, the two peering to right and left for signs of immediate danger. Plaster motes formed a white pall over the room, obstructing vision and stealing away breath. The tiny specks were in motion, propelled by the brisk zephyr whooshing through the three foot hole in the kitchen's outer wall. There was a charred smell in the air, synthetic -- the plastic explosive -- and to their left the stove was ablaze, blue flames shooting straight up from the ruptured gas lines. Of the furnishings, little remained: cutting tables were reduced to splinters and the sink was a lump of chipped porcelain.  
  
It was the bodies who caught their immediate attention, however -- two of them, khaki uniforms bloody, limbs twisted in that peculiar attitude only attainable by the dead. Of the chef there was no sign.  
  
"Mina must have rustled the Galloping Gourmet out of here with the other servants," Mike said, giving the bodies a single glance. He coughed and swiped at his face; the burning stove was beginning to generate thick black smoke, further fouling the atmosphere. He paused, head cocked in a listening posture; somewhere in the house an alarm bell was clanging, a raucous call to arms. "Word's got out. Better move."  
  
"You'd better move," a gruff voice ordered from behind. This was followed by a shove, then Archangel too emerged from the stair, automatic rifle clenched professionally in both hands. He glanced around, loosing his weapon to adjust his half-darkened glasses. "Mejindas keeps a small army as a security force plus gunships standing by. We won't be able to outrun them once they're aloft."  
  
Mike gestured to the other erstwhile prisoners, still concealed on the stair. They appeared one by one, stopping to gape at the dead guards. "You can sight-see later," he snapped, earning blank looks which turned to immediate alarm when there was a dull rumble from directly below, and the floor shook violently. Mike nodded smugly. "There goes the control center. Don't worry about the choppers," he went on to Coldsmith-Briggs. "Mina ... Mrs. Mejindas planted charges. They should be going up any minute now."  
  
"Remarkable woman," Archangel commented.  
  
Mike grinned. "Yeah."  
  
Jason, dark face already powdered with plaster dust, glanced out of the blast hole in the wall, then picked his way across the shattered kitchen, gun at ready, toward the rear exit. "If we're going according to schedule, Airwolf should be waiting for us right now. We've got no time to waste."  
  
"Yeah, if she's not scattered over the landscape," Rivers grumbled, making no move to follow. A frown creased his features, leaving no trace of the cherubic boyishness that was his trademark. "Where is Mina? She was supposed to meet us here."  
  
Michael, limping heavily on his bad leg, stepped over one of the mangled guards, AK-47 cradled comfortably in one arm. A slight movement caught his eye and he reached out, snagging the scruff of Simon Steiner's neck before the man could sidle back into the basement. "Going somewhere, Simon?" he asked casually, allowing the barrel of his rifle to droop until it was pointed more or less at the enemy agent's crotch.  
  
Steiner began to shake, small brown eyes rolling desperately. "You'll never make it!" he blubbered, though moving not a single muscle. "We'll all be killed if you try this!"  
  
Archangel shrugged, his smile so pleasant as to be doubly chilling. "Now? Or later?" he asked, implication clear.  
  
Steiner gulped again and went silent.  
  
Barely audible over the crackle of the flames came a loud groan from the short connecting hallway. Rivers stopped cold, alarm flicking across his round face. "That could be Mina," he said with concern, leaving the knot of men and flattening himself against the undamaged wall, odd looking plastic pistol cocked and ready. "I'm going to check it out; you two get those men over the wall."  
  
"We'll need rope for that," Archangel yelled over the growing din of the fire. The flames were licking at the wall, charring the crumbled plaster black, the hiss of escaping gas an eerie background timbre.  
  
Jason had reached the door first and was cautiously poking his head outside. The crack of a rifle shot barely preceded the ping of the ricochet that hit six inches from his left cheek. He retreated like a turtle back into his shell. "There's ladders in the vicinity," he said, pointing to a spot only feet from the tall stone barrier. "All we have to do is get to them." He jerked his head in the general vicinity of the sky. "Three sentries, semi-auto. Nine o'clock, two and four."  
  
Michael didn't even bother to nod. "On my mark. Ready...." A heartbeat passed, then, with a wordless shout they synchronously leaped from the cover of the kitchen door, backs together, the two highly trained men moving as a virtual unit. Michael sprayed the right wall with the AK-47, one hundred rounds of lead impacting in seconds. The exposed guard threw up his hands, screamed once and fell forward, landing in Mina Mejindas' flower garden. The second sprouted a scarlet blossom of his own in the middle of his forehead; he dropped without a sound.  
  
On the opposite side and carrying only a pistol, Jason Locke stood utterly motionless, ignoring the potential death that rained around him. He frowned, taking his time, drawing a bead on the dark head just visible above the low parapet. He aimed, took a deep breath and gently squeezed the trigger, all in the space of less than five incredibly long seconds. The specialized gun made a coughing noise and the dark head vanished. It did not reappear.  
  
The two glanced around but there were no other targets in sight as yet. "Come on!" Archangel yelled, limping to the long, lengthwise ladder laying conveniently against the base of the wall. "We have to be on the other side before reinforcements arrive!"  
  
The group of prisoners didn't have to be told twice. They trotted to his position, one of them, the bloodthirsty Dox, encouraging Steiner along by the simple expedient of wrapping both hands around his throat and squeezing. Michael regarded the sight with a grin. "Admire your technique, Benjamin."  
  
"Learned it from the best," Dox replied, broken teeth showing through his own long beard. "Didn't I, Simon?" Steiner contented himself with a gurgle and picked up his pace.  
  
The tattered prisoners righted both ladders, setting them against the wall. Michael ascended first, scrambling up the rungs with remarkable agility considering his damaged knee. He arrived at the top unscathed, from which vantage he kept a watchful eye for additional guards. For good measure he occasionally sprayed the courtyard with his gun when a braver than usual soul stuck his head out either window or door. Under his vigil the others began their climb, Dox making sure Steiner went just ahead of himself. Once aloft they hauled the second ladder up, wasting no time in descending the opposite side.  
  
"They're clear!" Michael called down to the lingering Jason Locke. "Your turn."  
  
Rather than beginning his own climb, Jason waited at the bottom, anxiously scanning the kitchen door for signs of his partner. "Not yet!" he returned. "I think Mike might be in tro-- Wait! I think I see something!"  
  
***  
  
Even as Coldsmith-Briggs and Locke were eliminating the sentries, Mike was on the move himself. An agile leap took him through the kitchen doorway and into the short corridor leading to the library. The bark of automatic weapons' fire gave him pause; he hesitated, debating only briefly before resolutely continuing in his original direction. Concern tightened his gut for the pretty Mina Mejindas, respect for her courage only heightening the sexual chemistry he'd felt spark at their first meeting. Though emotionally as rock steady as they come, Mike Rivers had always had the tendency to fall in love at the toss of a beautiful head. He knew it. He didn't care.  
  
"Mina did her part," he muttered, actually wincing at the sudden silence without. "No way I'm leaving a brave woman here to pay for my life."  
  
He waved aside the smoke which was even now seeping out of the kitchen, squinting against it to begin his search. He had taken exactly two steps forward when his toe caught on something soft and yielding. He went to his knees, heart in his throat, and stretched out a quivering hand. "Mina?" he croaked, touching ... an apron? He sighed, relief nearly spilling him the rest of the way to the floor. "Sorry, Cookie," he muttered, regaining his feet. "Hope you and your vegetables think good thoughts of me when you wake up."  
  
He stepped across the semi-conscious chef to the end of the hall, gun gripped in white knuckles, frantically seeking the architect of their escape. He raised his voice, calling, "Mina!"  
  
The answer he received was not the one he expected. There was a masculine shout from directly ahead; he breasted the library threshold to find three uniformed men -- the bored American pilots that had accosted him earlier. Muscles straining, they were shoving at a heavy bookcase that had overbalanced from the blast and now blocked the room's main entrance. Another door, off to the side, hung twisted, jammed in it's frame.  
  
"... choppers are on that side of the building," one was screaming to his comrades. At Mike's footstep the three glanced over their shoulders once and stopped cold, staring astonished at the blond pilot ... and his weapon, which was pointed in their direction.  
  
"Hey! Wha--?" one stuttered, the florid faced redhead with the superstition about the mentally deficient.  
  
Mike waggled a forefinger in their direction. "Unh-unh-uh!" he chided in english. "Whole sentences only, please. Better yet," he corrected, "how about dead silence? If you know what's good for you."  
  
"It's the retard!" the mustached man growled, taking a step forward. "He's some kind'a spy!"  
  
Mike bared his teeth wolfishly, meeting his opponent halfway with a beautiful roundhouse kick to the gut that doubled the man over. He went down, gasping and clutching his stomach. "That's for making fun of the handicapped," he reproved, enjoying himself hugely. He'd been wanting to do that since their first meeting. The mustache's comrades started forward, stopping when he leveled his gun. "If you two want to live ..." he began. He broke off at the sound of a muffled, feminine shout, grinning when small fists began beating on the jammed door. "... you'll get that door opened for the Patron's wife right now."  
  
"Mrs. Mejindas?" That was the third man, now revealed as a fortyish, clean shaven man with a heavily lined face and sharp eyes. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"  
  
"Just do it," Mike ordered, all playfulness dropping away. "Now!"  
  
Being unsuicidal, the men obeyed, putting their shoulders to the heavy door and pushing, while their colleague laid face to the ground and groaned. The door resisted their efforts for a full minute, then there was a splintering noise, that of the frame itself giving way. The door slammed open, crashing against the back wall.  
  
"Mina?" Mike called, not taking his eyes off his unwilling allies.  
  
"Here!" She appeared at once, breathing hard and face flushed. She still wore the green jumpsuit and elegant sandals of the morning, but had since augmented her accessories with a silver-plated Ruger, nestled comfortably in one hand. "Sorry I'm late; I had trouble getting all the servants to safety. There were old women and children working for me and I couldn't risk them getting hurt."  
  
She ran into Mike's arms, and he slid an arm around her waist, giving her a squeeze and using the gesture to swing her behind him toward the hall. "Move, babe," he ordered. "Archangel and the other prisoners should be over the wall already."  
  
Surprise blanked the enemy pilots briefly, replaced with scowls. The response to this, however, came surprisingly from the doorway Mina had just quitted. "What is going on here?" a deep bass demanded in spanish.  
  
"Carlos?" She spun toward the short, middle-aged man who was standing in the doorway having obviously arrived only seconds after herself. "Carlos," she repeated, staring around Mike, who had also turned to look, though both kept their guns trained on the tense enemy pilots.  
  
Carlos Mejindas stood stock still in the doorway, looking from his wife, to Rivers and back again. "Mina, what is the meaning of this?" the man went on in good if accented english. "What is happening?"  
  
The woman raised her chin, emerald eyes filled with scorn. "I'm putting an end to your plotting, Carlos. I won't let you endanger my country any more. You're through. We're through."  
  
There was more surprise than hurt in the man's face. Full lips drew together angrily under a neatly trimmed beard. "So, you are a traitor!"  
  
"No," Mina returned defiantly. "I'm an American."  
  
Mike prodded her with a hand. "We'll file the divorce papers later, honey. Let's go."  
  
She nodded and turned away. "Mina," her husband called as farewell. "I shall see you again."  
  
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Rivers muttered, protective instincts shifting into high. "Okay, everybody, time to drop and cover."  
  
"Or?" the redhead snarled, clenching his ham sized fists threateningly.  
  
Mike smiled and leveled his weapon. "Or I shoot you. Any more questions?"  
  
There was a pause while the two stood measuring each other, then, glancing once at Mina Mejindas, the two complied, lying full length on the floor and covering their heads with both hands.  
  
"Or I shoot you," Mina repeated to her husband, face white but aim steady. He too knelt, locking his fingers in his short, gray hair.  
  
"We're not finished yet," the mustache muttered venomously, having recovered his aplomb.  
  
But the object of his hatred was already gone. Together the two fled for the kitchen, which was now quite thoroughly ablaze. The flames from the stove had spread, covering one wall and half the floor. Mike wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders. "No choice," he shouted over the roar of the flames. "We go for it."  
  
She nodded and the two ran for the outer door, arms raised to shield their faces, coughing in the thick smoke. Mike felt his skin starting to blister from the intense heat, the soles of his feet beginning to smart even through his work boots. Mina was wearing only sandals. Not glancing down, he slid his arm lower, around her small waist, physically lifting her the last several yards. Lungs ready to burst, it was with real relief that they emerged into the relatively clear air of the great outdoors.  
  
"Holy--!" Mina screeched as her silk overjacket burst into flames. Mike, reacting instantly, ripped it off her body and tossed it away. "Whew! Thanks, cowboy!" she managed, bending down to rub at the scarlet blisters raising on both her feet. "You're a real lifesaver."  
  
"Git along, little dogie," the pilot returned, grabbing her hand. The two finished their journey across the wide enclosure at a dead run, reaching the ladder and Jason Locke only seconds later.  
  
"About time you two showed up," Locke growled, ushering Mina up the ladder, then leaping in her wake. "We're running a little late, remember?"  
  
"So long as Airwolf isn't," the blond retorted, bringing up the rear.  
  
It was no more than an additional thirty seconds later before they were joining the knot of men waiting at the bottom. The group remained flattened against the towering wall, watching the barren landscape for signs of their rescuers. All that was immediately visible was fading puffs of smoke in the south.  
  
"Twenty foot safety," Mina gasped, shading her eyes against the bright sun, "then the mine field starts and covers the entire hill. I don't know the pattern. Hello, Michael."  
  
"Mina," Michael returned, giving the woman a warm smile. "You've done a good job. I owe you."  
  
"Job isn't over yet," Jason pointed out, using his gun to indicate the fifty-five degree incline bounding the wall. "Jo isn't going to be able to land a Huey on this steep a hill. We're going to have to reach the bottom before we can be picked up."  
  
Rivers heard them through a mounting fear. Blue eyes scanned the horizon desperately, heart sinking in his chest. "If Airwolf didn't make it through the air defenses," he said aloud, "we'll have no where to run."  
  
Archangel looked up, startling Rivers out of his funk by firing a short burst at the top of the wall; this was followed by a yell and a very satisfying thump. "We may be out of time anyway," the Firm's Deputy Director grunted, checking his magazine. "They'll be up there en masse any moment, and I'm running low on ammo."  
  
Mina slid her hand back into Mike's and he curled his fingers around it, feeling the slight quiver in her body through the contact. "We may have another problem, guys," she said, raising their clasped hands until she could see the diamond studded Rolex on her left wrist. "Even allowing for all the excitement, we should have heard the hangar go up. I set the charge to blow a few minutes early, hoping to draw the rest of Carlos' security men to the other side of the Casa." She tilted her head worriedly. "I didn't hear anything go boom, did you?"  
  
"Must've been cut rate H.E.," Mike joked, seeing no humor in the situation but wanting badly to lighten the tension. "You know the Government."  
  
"Your tax dollars at work," Jason interjected, accurately divining his intention. Good old Jason. "Hope Mejindas' chopper squadron were lowest contractors, too."  
  
Mike waved a hand, heart sinking again. "One more thing for the Kitty Hawke's to worry about." That hadn't come out as off-handed as he'd intended. He added, unable to keep the gloom out of his voice, "I told you baby brother couldn't do it. Why do I always have to be right?"  
  
"If you are," Jason retorted also without humor, "this'll be the last time ... for any of us." He broke off when Archangel grabbed his arm, triumph in his one good eye.  
  
"You're wrong!" he crowed, raising his rifle in salute. "There she is! Airwolf!"  
  
But Mike had already heard it -- the distinctive sound of powerful engines. Two shapes appeared over the occluded horizon, one sleek and deadly, black upper and white belly making her appear as nothing if not a killer whale. The second was rounder, clumsier, and painted the Army's own peculiar shade of olive drab. To the cheering of those assembled, the two helicopters approached rapidly, reaching the waiting group within seconds.  
  
"Get back!" Jason yelled, flattening himself against the wall and shielding his face. The other six did likewise just as Airwolf swept low, her chainguns chattering. She began a strafing run starting twenty feet from the cowering group, twin lines scoring the earth as a direct path. She rose, made a single pass against the top of the wall to discourage guards, then two more to ensure that the grounds were cleared. For good measure she loosed several missiles in the same line; the concussion was deafening and flung Mike and his comrades backward into hard stone. In her wake the mines went up, one ... three ... a dozen ... more, until Mike couldn't even count the number of bursts, nor see much beyond the choking cloud of dust.  
  
Meanwhile, Jo chose a spot off the incline and well within the cleared area, and touched the second chopper down, first tilting her rotors obligingly to blow away the obscuring dirt.  
  
"You were saying, Major Rivers?" Michael grinned, brushing back a long strand of blowing sandy hair."  
  
Mike shrugged, grumbled, "We'll talk about it later," then they were moving rapidly in single file, leaping over miniature craters, eyes fixed on the waiting Huey and the suddenly conceivable concept of salvation.  
  
*** 


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8  
  
Airwolf hung watchfully above the scrambling group, nosed slightly downward so that her occupants could see. Jason Locke was first, distinguishable by his dark coloration. His long-legged lope carried him to the rim of the hillside, but rather than beginning his descent, he turned to hook a hand under the elbow of the next man in line -- Archangel, whose sandy hair and beard gleamed platinum in the bright sun. The blond's leg slowed them slightly, forcing Jason to brace the man going down. Off the slope, however, Michael's permanent limp ceased to be a problem; once on level ground he pulled free of Jason's assistance and sprinted for the waiting Bell at a speed that even Locke was hard put to match.  
  
A quartet of strangers was next, three men in tatters one of whom dragged a fourth man wearing a labcoat. Moving stiffly, they crept down the steep hillside at a slower but still rapid clip, sliding often but remaining well within the tracks left by the large-caliber bullets. Bringing up the rear was Mike Rivers and Mina Mejindas. The woman was faring less well than her male cohorts; between the dainty, impractical sandals and badly blistered feet, the rocky non-path was proving itself to be more mountain than molehill. She stumbled over a rock, falling to her knees, and Mike, his hand still firmly locked around her small one, was dragged down as well. He was up in an instant, drawing her up and forward. She tried gamely but was unable to make a faster pace, and Rivers hung back as well, giving what assistance he was able, the grade too sheer to permit his carrying her as before.  
  
Even as they moved, the front gates to Casa del Suerte swung open long enough for two more of the specially equipped jeeps to dart out. Carrying fifty-caliber Browning machine guns yammering their anger, the vehicles streaked down the unmined access, the road's meanderings bringing them within firing range of the escaping humans. Even at the distance and awkward angle, the gunners' aims were good; frighteningly large chunks of lead raked the side of the stationary Bell, holing it neatly in several places, another track dogging the steps of the second group of prisoners, who were even now reaching the escape ship.  
  
"String!" Saint John called from his place at Airwolf's engineering console. "Those jeeps--!"  
  
The younger Hawke nodded curtly. "I see them." He tapped both cyclic and collective bringing the helicopter around and darting like an arrow toward the jeeps. He pressed the trigger mechanism on his stick, blue eyes glittering as hard as sapphire, and the extended chainguns added their own chatter to the bedlam, loud without the buffer of a sealed cockpit. Stringfellow stitched the ground neatly in the direction of the jeeps; one solid hit from his guns would have ended the threat then and there. It became obvious that the drivers were no tyros with their wares, however; in unison both men pulled hard on the steering wheels and the converted vehicles parted, swinging off the road in opposite directions only seconds before they would have been destroyed. Unable to alter direction quickly enough to compensate, Hawke's twin bullet lines passed harmlessly between them, then another twist on the steering wheel brought the jeeps back to the road and on their original course, obviously barely skirting the first pattern of landmines. The diversion was enough, however, to allow Locke, Archangel and the quartet of escapees to climb aboard the waiting Bell safely.  
  
"Hawk!" came Archangel's voice through the helmet mikes a moment later. "Stringfellow, is that you?"  
  
"Michael?" Stringfellow Hawke's voice came haltingly at first, as though he couldn't quite trust the evidence of his own ears. A warm smile lifted his lips, though, genuine delight transmitting in his voice. "You okay?"  
  
Michael Coldsmith-Briggs laughed happily, his own pleasure communicating itself even through the imperfect medium of the headset. "I'm doing a whole lot better than I was, my friend. Good to have you back."  
  
Saint John, ever practical, came on next. "We'll have to save the reunion for later, guys. Jo, you'd better lift off; your chopper isn't armored and those jeeps are making another run."  
  
"But what about...?" the woman asked, dutifully increasing rotor speed.  
  
"We'll get Mike and Mrs. Mejindas," Saint John promised, even as his brother loosed the 30 millimeter cannons at the returning jeeps. They scattered again but he had no opportunity to pursue them for at that moment more gunshots rang out from the vicinity of the fortress wall. It was now lined with soldiers, each firing at Rivers and Mejindas, who immediately dropped flat. Airwolf realigned herself again, dropping to interpose herself between the gunmen and their prey. Because of the angle, her rotors were tipped nearly vertical, the blowback whipping dust into a veritable tempest. There would be no way for the imperiled couple to get close enough to board. Taking advantage of the brief respite, Mike pulled the girl back to her feet and the two continued their run, aiming for flatter ground where they could be picked up. Their goal was good -- their fortune was not. Even as Hawke twisted his ship to give the snipers another taste of his lead, the jeeps spewed their passengers; men carrying more automatic weapons dug in, while the Brownings scoring direct hits on Airwolf's armored hide.  
  
A loud ping brought Saint John's head up, alarm widening his light eyes. "They got the rotors," he called, slamming his hand down on several switches; three tell-tales muted back to a comforting green; one continued to flash a red warning. "From this range those fifties can hurt us, String."  
  
"Give me a Copperhead," Stringfellow ordered, and Saint John pressed another button on his console. There was a whirring click and the air-to- ground missile snapped into place.  
  
"Copperhead!" Saint John yelled even as Stringfellow launched the weapon at the moving jeeps. Once more they tried to separate; this time it made no difference. The high explosive the Copperhead bore went up on impact, the concussion powerful enough to lift the jeeps straight into the air and carry them thirty feet. They came down in the middle of the minefield where several more smaller explosions immediately followed, two of them the red-hot combustion of gasoline. When the smoke began to clear the jeeps were recognizable only as twisted steel chassis; of the drivers there was no sign at all.  
  
Not waiting to see the results of his assault, Stringfellow pulled Airwolf up and around, back toward the still firing snipers on the wall. He raked the top with the chainguns and it cleared miraculously, then he swooped back around for another pass at the soldiers on the road. He was too late by seconds.  
  
As Mina Mejindas had said, her husband was no fool. The men he'd hired were mercenaries, motivated by greed; they were also the highest trained mercenaries money could buy. Moving like the professional soldiers they were, eight men who'd disembarked from the jeeps ranged themselves along the barrier of the minefield, taking cover behind the various boulders and dead trees scattered in the area. Dug in, they opened fire both on Airwolf and the scrambling Mike Rivers and Mina Mejindas. Even as Stringfellow's chainguns sent the soldiers ducking for cover, Mina, trailing Mike by a step, threw up her hands and went down, again dragging Mike with her. The two tumbled heels over head almost to the bottom of the hill where they lay unmoving.  
  
"Put her down!" Saint John yelled, ripping off his helmet. "They're hit!"  
  
Airwolf settled to rest as close as she was able; the great rotors nearly swept the inclined ground, one wheel brushing the extreme edge of the uncleared minefield. "Hurry!" Stringfellow urged as his brother unstrapped himself and leaped out the passenger side door.  
  
"Cover me," Saint John called back, taking off up the slope at a run. Too close to the defenseless humans to risk another missile, Stringfellow again raised his craft, using the chainguns and cannon to rake the high protecting wall of the fortress and force the armed sentries back to cover. He repeated the action on the side of the road; eyes narrow and without mercy, he strafed the soldiers there, forcing them to scatter ... the ones that were able.  
  
Meanwhile, Saint John Hawke had reached the downed couple and dropped to his knees beside the weakly moving Mike Rivers. "Mike!" he called urgently, blue-gray eyes raking the younger pilot for signs of injury. Blood trailed down one side of his friend's temple near the eye, a spreading bruise coloring the area purple; beyond that he was unmarked. "Say something, man!"  
  
"Mpgfgl," Rivers returned obediently, squinting up into his friend's concerned face. "Wha--?"  
  
Hawke cocked his head. "I guess that qualifies as something." He shook him again, then snagged a handful of work shirt, using his grip to pull the man to a sitting position. "Come on, Mike! Are you all right?"  
  
Rivers shook his head, obviously more than just winded. "I see two of you," he remarked with annoying casualness, "and my head is going to fall off any minute. Other than that, I'm terrific."  
  
Saint John released his grip, patting the man on the back before crawling to the second motionless body. "You're probably concussed. Mrs. Mejindas?"  
  
But if he was expecting an answer he was doomed to disappointment. Green eyes stared sightlessly into the crystal sky, full red lips gaping open as though in surprise. Across the middle of the green silk jumpsuit three holes had appeared, each gaping and bloody, any one of which would have been instantly fatal. Saint John's long jaw tightened, face going expressionless. He sighed and closed the staring eyes even as Rivers crawled up behind him.  
  
"Mina?" the blond pilot called, boyish face creasing with alarm at sight of the woman. "Mina, honey?"  
  
Hawke caught his arm. "We can't do anything for her, Mike."  
  
Rivers shrugged himself free. He slid his arms under the limp body, lifting it tenderly into his lap. "Mina," he groaned, shaking her gently. "Please, wake up."  
  
"Mike." Saint John again grabbed Rivers' arm, using his free hand to try and free the woman from his grasp. "She's dead. I'm ... sorry."  
  
"No...."  
  
But there was no more time! Airwolf had already resettled into place and String was frantically gesturing at them. Hawke pulled Rivers around roughly, slapping him hard in the face, then catching him by both shoulders. "She's dead!" he snapped brutally, staring into the averted face. "And we will be too if you don't snap out of it!"  
  
The bluntness worked. Awareness drained back into the man's blue eyes; he shook his head again and took a deep breath, then gently laid the woman's body down on the chewed up earth. "I'm sorry, honey," he whispered sincerely, allowing Saint John to help him up. He swayed dizzily, one hand going to his temple, then he pulled it away, staring stupidly at the blood on his fingers. "Now, how did that happen?" he wondered aloud, putting his feet into clumsy motion.  
  
To that there was to be no answer for they had made it not six feet farther down the slope when a shot rang out from the direction of the road. Saint John cried out once and dropped, only Mike's rapid grab preventing him from falling into the too-near minefield to their right.  
  
This time covering gunshots came from above. Jo's olive green helicopter swooped low over the road, a blond man leaning perilously out the open side door, AK-47 chattering in his hand. Once more the soldiers scattered for safety, while Airwolf waited impatiently for her passengers.  
  
"Saint John!" Mike called. Still dazed, he dropped down beside the fallen man, feeling for a pulse. He found one almost immediately, even as the light brown lashes fluttered and opened, gazing disorientedly up into his face.  
  
"Wha--?" Hawke muttered, lifting his head, wincing and dropping it back into the dirt.  
  
"Sheer eloquence itself," Rivers joshed weakly, lifting the man's arm. Blood seeped through the gray uniform sleeve, a long gash showing through the ruined nylon material. "Looks like a nasty graze; another inch and it would have taken your arm clear off."  
  
"Horseshoes and hand grenades," the bigger man mumbled, this time making it to a sitting position but no further. He clamped one hand to the sluggishly bleeding arm, teeth gritted as the pain hit. "We've got to get to ... Airwolf."  
  
"We may have to crawl," Rivers muttered, touching his head and paling again. Both men looked up at the yell from the sleek black helicopter so close and yet so far. The pilot's side door opened with and Stringfellow Hawke slid out, doffing the black helmet as he disembarked. A nickel plated Browning High Power was grasped securely in his right hand, sharp blue eyes scanning the terrain as he limped toward them. The automatic roared once, a scream following from a nearly invisible soldier who had somehow crept closer despite the mines.  
  
"What is he doing out of Airwolf?" Saint John growled, displeasedly staring down his long nose at his brother. "He shouldn't be out of the ship!"  
  
"I think he's rescuing us," Mike returned with some attempt at reasonableness, indicating the twitching body of the soldier with his thumb. "Think you can stand?"  
  
"Can you?" the other retorted.  
  
By then Stringfellow had reached them; he scanned Saint John quickly, alarm crossing his youthful face upon spying the bloody wound. "Saint John?" he demanded, returning his attention to the terrain immediately.  
  
"I'm all right," the older brother answered unsteadily, accepting String's free hand and using it to haul himself to his feet.  
  
"We're both all right ... sort of," Rivers interjected caustically, also accepting a helping hand from the younger Hawke. "Come on, Saint John." Leaning on each other, the two wounded men made their way back to the helicopter, String to their fore moving backward, eyes still scanning the terrain, pistol now gripped in a stable Weaver combat grip. All three men glanced skyward at the sudden sound of helicopter blades. It wasn't Jo; she'd made another sweep of the road, Archangel's gun firing again, then retreated out of range of the assault rifles. No, this was no heavy Huey their combat trained ears were picking up. On cue a needle-nosed, tan-and- black swatched gunship rose from behind the shelter of the towering fortress, zipping at high speed for the exposed trio.  
  
"What is it?" Saint John asked in the brief interval between notice and renewed motion.  
  
"Mi-24 Hind," Mike panted, tripping over a rock but recovering instantly. "S-Soviet made, heavily armed ... troop transport."  
  
Saint John pursed his lips. "Swell. As if we didn't have enough troubles."  
  
Doggedly, all three continued on unchecked, then Stringfellow stopped suddenly. "What are you doing!" Saint John yelled, skidding to a halt, Mike nearly slamming into his rear. "Keep going!"  
  
Blue eyes narrowed, String brought the Browning up and down again, pointed directly at Mike's head. "Uh ... if this is about that baby brother crack...." the blond gulped, eyes locked on the large bore.  
  
Muzzle flash and thunder erupted simultaneously, recoil making the weapon jump in Stringfellow's grip. Lead zipped past Rivers and Saint John Hawke, ripping into the form of a khaki clad man who was even then drawing a bead on them from the top of the hill. At the same moment, the swooping combat helicopter opened up with its own weapons, beginning a strafing run on the exposed trio. Saint John whirled, shoving Mike to the side out of the path of that deadly hail; not slowing, he next hurled himself bodily at his still standing brother. He caught String around the waist, carrying them both into the dirt just ahead of and between the double line of bullets that pock-marked the ground on either side.  
  
The helicopter zoomed past, and Stringfellow, winded by the impact, pushed against the heavier man who was lying full length across him and shielding his face with one arm. Saint John lifted his head, glaring down into his brother's face. "What did you think you were doing?!" Saint John bellowed, gray eyes flashing dangerously.  
  
"What was I doing?" the younger man echoed, astonishment blanking his features for several seconds. "Trying to save your life ... in case you didn't notice." He pushed again, more violently this time. "Get off of me!" Saint John rolled off onto his wounded arm, the pain forcing a low groan from between his teeth. String was instantly on his knees, alarmed. "Saint John, I--"  
  
"Chat later," Mike gritted, having reached them at a rapid crawl. "Look." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where two more helicopters, smaller but similarly armed, had joined the Hind; all three hovered together for a single second as though consulting, before turning menacingly for the unmanned Airwolf. "Mejindas is packing a couple of upgraded Sikorskys, too, and enough hardware to flatten Alberquerque. We've got to move, kids." He grabbed Saint John's good arm, String hooking a hand under his shoulder, and between the two of them, they managed to haul the big blond the short distance to safety.  
  
They hadn't even strapped in before Stringfellow, again in the pilot's seat, pulled back on both stick and collective and Airwolf was airborne again. One handed, he donned his helmet, angling the ship out of the way of the three enemy helicopters' first runs. Bullets splashed harmlessly past, giving all three time to slip into the safety harnesses and buckle them.  
  
"Now we're loaded for bear!" Mike crowed through his helmet microphone. His fingers played across the weapons and countermeasures console, expert eyes skimming all tell-tales, gauges and switches. "Weapons in combat mode," he announced. "She's yours, Hawke."  
  
At the engineering station Saint John brought his own computer on-line. He called up several schematics, two of them displaying flashing red arrows. "Minor damage to the rotors," he announced, typing some commands with one finger, the other hand lying useless in his lap. "Adjusting trim to compensate. Metal stress within acceptable limits."  
  
The younger Hawke said nothing. After a single glance at his brother's blood staining his sleeve, he pursed his lips, face growing hard. "Give me turbos," he snapped, pressing the red button on the joystick. The powerful jet engines kicked in at once, shoving all three back in their seats as Airwolf nosed up to the heavens.  
  
"Get going, Jo!" Mike called, peering anxiously through the aft camera at the hesitating Army chopper displayed on his screen. Jo muttered an affirmative, banking sharply just ahead of a long run by one of the enemy craft -- a fierce looking Sikorsky Blackhawk with obvious modifications. Something flashed from under the craft's belly, a missile streaking past the Bell and ramming itself into the rocky ground.  
  
"Yike!" Jo yelped in alarm and poured on the rpm. "Guys, this old tub isn't going to be able to dodge many of those!"  
  
"You just concentrate on getting out," String told her grimly. "We'll take care of the interference."  
  
"Right." She didn't sound happy, but the unarmed Huey responded like the capable machine it was. Behind it, Airwolf dropped from a thousand feet to hover dangerously, facing the three enemy craft in a deadly face-off."  
  
"You have one chance to retreat," String warned, changing radio frequencies with a touch of a button. "Pursue us and I will destroy you."  
  
"Doesn't sound like the black pig slopper," a smirking voice responded through all three helmets. "And I see pretty little Mrs. Mejindas didn't make it all the way."  
  
Stringfellow Hawke stiffened, casting one half-glance over his shoulder. "They're Americans?" he asked, startled.  
  
Mike growled something obscene. "They're slimeballs working for the money. Not worth your concern, pal."  
  
String nodded grimly. "Wouldn't make any difference anyway. We're getting out of here."  
  
Mike grunted agreement, then pressed a selector switch. "Back off, low life," he snapped at the mercenary pilots, hatred flaring in his boyish face. "Or we'll blow you out of the sky."  
  
There was a surprised grunt from one of the unseen pilots even as, in a smooth, coordinated move, the three helicopters separated, assuming different altitudes and courses. "Hey, I know that voice! Isn't that the retard we should'a squashed earlier?"  
  
"You mean the one that put you on the deck?" another taunted. "Sure sounds like him."  
  
"Lucky shot," the first growled, humor fading.  
  
The second one only laughed again. "Sure it was. Hey, retard, bet it ain't you flyin' that killer chopper, is it."  
  
"'Fraid not, Red," Mike returned amiably, though his full lips were drawn back in a feral snarl. "But it's me with his finger on these killer weapons. Wanna take your only chance on getting out of this alive?"  
  
Laughter came from two distinct throats, then one of the enemy Blackhawks darted forward, heavy machine gun's blazing. Tracer burned the air ahead of it, the visible lines heading right for the armored death machine named Airwolf. Stringfellow tipped the cyclic and Airwolf banked gracefully away from that deadly hail of bullets; another deft touch and Airwolf's own guns chattered, forcing the Blackhawk out of its flight path. The second rose slowly until it hovered above the action, then nosed down, also firing, its aim even more accurate.  
  
Airwolf shuddered, smoke beginning to seep out of an inspection hatch in the floor. "Armor piercing!" Mike yelled, turning on the emergency blower. "A couple more hits and those guys can take us down!"  
  
"Primary fuel line hit!" Saint John reported, typing another command into his board. "Switching to secondary source."  
  
"We're gonna blast you and your boyfriend right out of the sky," the voice of the mustached man snarled, sounding pleased at the possibility.  
  
"You can try," Mike returned, too much the professional to remove his gaze from the composite radar image he was studying. "Hawke, one of 'em's sneaking off after Jo!"  
  
"No, he's not," Stringfellow stated matter-of-factly, hitting the thrusters at the same time he pulled the joystick to the right. Airwolf's engines screamed, her sleek black form taking off in pursuit of the Russian-made Hind, which had opened fire on the fleeing Huey. Caught unprepared, the Blackhawks were left behind. Hawke aligned his craft on the big Hind, snapping, "Give me a Maverick!"  
  
"Loaded," Mike called, pressing button.  
  
The black helmet visor snapped down over Hawke's face, the optical tracking system again following the movement of his pupils. He waited until the Hind was centered precisely in the crosshairs, then squeezed the trigger; there was a muffled whoosh from his craft, then a streak from her belly. An obviously experienced combat pilot, the third flyer, recognizable to Rivers by simple elimination as the silent newspaper reader from the library, broke off his attack, veering his craft a split second before the hurtling missile struck. It flashed by harmlessly, expending it's high explosive charge on the rocky ground.  
  
Still moving at a considerable percentage of the speed of sound, Airwolf too flashed by, Hawke pulling hard on the controls and bringing the craft into a high looping arc, placing it between Jo's Huey and the approaching Blackhawks. This was easier said than done, however, since the Blackhawks were obviously modified for speed as well as weaponry, and the Huey, though reliable, was relatively slow by comparison. The Sikorsky Blackhawks, fast as wasps, darted high and low, the Hind taking the flank, all drawing a bead on Airwolf's armored skin.  
  
Suddenly, there was a double flash from two of the enemy helicopters. "Rockets!" Mike yelled, but Hawke had already hit the red thrusters button; Airwolf climbed, veered, then dove, pulling up at the last second and allowing the two rockets to flash past. There was twin explosions and a small hill vanished, then four helicopters resumed their high speed jockeying for position, each seeking the opportunity to loose another projectile.  
  
"Hellfire," Hawke snapped as one of the wasp-like Blackhawks appeared dead center in his windshield. Mike complied and again he pressed a trigger, this time releasing one of the four Helicopter Launched Fire and Forget missiles Airwolf carried. It streaked forward and Airwolf banked again, literally "Forgetting" it. With a solid mile to function and set to track thermal emissions, the missile acquired immediately. The ill-fated helicopter pilot zig-zagged but was unable to escape; he had time to scream before his ship disintegrated into a ball of flaming jet fuel and shrapnel.  
  
In the engineer's chair, Saint John worked his own boards, monitoring and adjusting system after system for maximum efficiency. He regulated the fuel flow, then the hydraulic pressure with each turn or dive, switching from backup to main system, not waiting for the computers to analyze. He also kept a watchful eye on his own screens. "Third guy is after Jo again," he reported. "Preparing to fire."  
  
"String!" Jo screamed through the helmet mike. "Help!"  
  
"Hang on, Jo!" Saint John urged even as Airwolf's secondary turbos again fired, boosting the craft back into range of the Huey and its pursuit. Both remaining enemy ships coordinated their moves -- the Hind realigned on the Huey, the second Blackhawk on Airwolf.  
  
"Double launch!" Mike yelled. "Heat seekers."  
  
There wasn't even time to fire a sunburst interceptor. Stringfellow didn't speak but Airwolf, breaking the sound barrier in seconds, streaked neatly between the second missile and the Huey, imminent death in her wake. The second missile, sensing a hotter source than the low level thermals of the Army chopper, immediately modified its course, now following Airwolf on an angle to and away from the laden rescue ship.  
  
"We're double acquired!" Mike reported somewhat unnecessarily, as Airwolf pushed her speed to nearly twice that of sound. "Impact twenty seconds. Sunburst away."  
  
Again he pressed the panel button marked "Sunburst-Chaff," and a white orb popped from the stubby wing units, flaring into stellar brilliance. The missiles, too close for their simplistic tracking devices to react, flashed past without registering the decoy.  
  
"No good," Saint John said, gritting his teeth. "They're still coming.  
  
Already at 20,000 feet and still nudging Mach 2, Airwolf's thrusters screamed. Hawke waited, continuing his course until Mike began in a deadly calm voice, "Impact, six ... five ... four...."  
  
He'd reached, "Two," when without warning Hawke cut the secondaries, using only one engine and rudder to nose over completely. The precise instant they were at a ninety degree angle to the ground he slammed both primary and secondary turbos on, accelerating back to Mach 1 in a suicide dive. Left behind, the missiles, both having targeted that single point in space previously occupied by the entity called Airwolf, angled together, slamming nose-to-nose and erupting in a fireball.  
  
Caught in the shockwave, the black helicopter began to tumble, rotor over belly over rotor, while three flash shields slammed down, protecting the occupants' faces from the glare. Stringfellow fought the stick and rudder pedals gamely, struggling to balance the great engines with the attitude governors to bring the gunship back under control. As he fought, the altitude slipped away and the ground rushed up to meet them.  
  
"Engage the rotors," Saint John said, his board flashing red right across.  
  
"We'd tear apart," Mike gritted from the co-pilot's seat, knuckles white on his arm rests.  
  
Teeth clenched, Stringfellow ignored them both. Rather than cutting the turbos, he gauged the tumble, waiting until they'd achieved some type of parallel-to-the-ground position, then tapped the primaries; Airwolf, metal plates groaning their protest, rocketed off like an arrow, the internal stresses nearly blacking out all three men. The pressure suits compensated, however, though not without cost. Saint John's arm began to bled again, more freely, and String's breathing came in short gasps for a long minute. Mike blanked for the same period of time, then shook his head to clear it once equilibrium was reestablished.  
  
"Wow," he muttered, blinking his way back to full awareness. Honest appreciation crossed his face and the look he turned to the back of Stringfellow Hawke's helmet was considering. "Talk about your E-ticket."  
  
"The ride's not over," Stringfellow panted, again wrestling the stick. "We've still got two after Jo."  
  
"Correct course to one-one-four relative," Saint John told him, clamping one hand to his wound. "Turbos will have us there in forty seconds."  
  
Stringfellow did as he was told while darting a worried glance over his shoulder at his brother's bloody arm. "How are you doing?" he asked, worry apparent in his voice though his eyes still shone with excitement from the battle.  
  
Saint John unclamped his fingers and examined the wound, then accepted the first aid kit Mike helpfully passed his way. "It's not bad but it hurts like the devil."  
  
"We'll get you to a hospital as soon as possible," String promised.  
  
Saint John Hawke snorted. "Maybe a band-aid; don't need a hospital. Hate the places."  
  
"I know what you mean," the younger brother breathed, eyes sweeping the sky.  
  
"Bogies dead ahead," Mike sang out, scrutinizing his multiple radar screens. "Emphasis on the dead. They're starting to fire on Jo again."  
  
Indeed they were. Though the Huey was flying open throttle, the enemy craft carried more speed and were even now entering assault range. The shots they fired made several strikes but the distance was still too great for them to do any real damage. Yet.  
  
Airwolf, faster by far, streaked into range from above and behind. "Sparrow!" he snapped, aligning the nose with the first ship. Without waiting for acknowledgement he pressed the trigger, smiling his satisfaction when one short-range air-to-air missile and one Russian Hind came together in a ball of flame. The second enemy ship broke off its own strike and whirled to the right, attempting to loop around to attack from behind. Hawke, however, was too experienced to allow that; going fully on rotors for their greater maneuverability, Airwolf latched onto the remaining Blackhawk's tail and hung on doggedly, chainguns and cannon blazing. The Blackhawk began a zig-zag evasive motion to no avail; there was a flash, then trails of oily smoke began to stain the air in her wake.  
  
The enemy pilot thumbed on his mike. "This isn't over, blondie," the redhead's voice snarled.  
  
"Yes, it is," Hawke whispered, firing off the last thermal homing Copperhead he carried. Direct hit and the redhead spoke no more.  
  
Airwolf flew past the smoldering wreckage, looped again and returned to the Huey. "Good job!" Jo gushed as they approached in an escort position. "You did great, boys!"  
  
"Everyone there all right, Jo?" Mike asked, nevertheless smiling at her enthusiasm.  
  
"We're all fine." She leveled out the Huey, altering her course fractionally. "What about you guys?"  
  
Mike answered, "Saint John took a bit of a hit...."  
  
"It's not serious," the older blond interjected, stuffing gauze into the rip in his sleeve. "A graze. Mike may have a concussion, though."  
  
"No way," the other man protested over Jo's double exclamation. "I've had concussions before. This isn't it."  
  
"What about you, String?" Jo asked after a moment during which the two men squabbled amiably over the merits of gunshot wounds over head injuries.  
  
"What about me what?" was the laconic reply.  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
There came a lull in the argument, Mike and Saint John turning to stare at their pilot, and Stringfellow Hawke's blue eyes glowed even brighter, a tiny smile touching his stern mouth. "Yeah," he answered. "I'm fine."  
  
"Hmmmm." There was a pause, then Jo said, "Jason said we need to maintain silence on this leg until we redeliver the Huey. I'll pick you guys up at the Lair."  
  
"We'll be there," Hawke replied, turning his ship for home.  
  
*** 


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9  
  
Maintaining strict radio silence except for a few necessary communications, Airwolf escorted the Huey back into 'safe' airspace, leaving her only a few miles from the Army base sponsoring the maneuvers Marella had referred to earlier. There, Jason Locke's authority overrode the security procedures, allowing the former prisoners to receive unquestioned medical attention and transportation back to Company headquarters in Los Angeles. Archangel waved off the hovering doctors, using the opportunity instead to get a fast shower and don a borrowed uniform before rejoining Jo and Jason one half- hour later, still damp but far more comfortable.  
  
Meanwhile, the Hawke's and an unusually quiet Mike Rivers returned Airwolf to the extinct volcano Stringfellow had christened 'the Lair' in a rare display of humor. He guided the craft easily down the great stone chimney, settling it on the landing pad Jo had assembled on Archangel's recommendation. A touch of two buttons and the engines cut off, the only sound remaining being the soft whish of the lazily rotating blades.  
  
Mike doffed his helmet and leaned back in his seat, tired blue eyes gazing at the lighted ceiling panels. "First floor," he said, wearily. "Bras, girdles and lingerie. Everybody out."  
  
"Easier said than done," Saint John mumbled, struggling one-handedly with his harness. "I feel like I'm rooted to this seat." He looked up when a helpful hand reached back and unsnapped the buckle. "Thanks."  
  
His brother withdrew, studying him from head to foot, gaze finally settling on the wound. "How's the arm?"  
  
Saint John clamped it again though no new blood welled on the clumsy bandages. "I was happier when it was numb. But I don't think it's going to kill me."  
  
Mike popped the co-pilot's side door and swung it wide. "You'll feel better once we get that disinfected and bandaged," he said, climbing stiffly out of the cockpit and reaching in a hand for the older Hawke. "Then, I have just the cure."  
  
"Aspirin?" Saint John guessed, allowing the other man to help him down.  
  
Mike looked horrified. "Do you know what that stuff does to your stomach? What I have in mind is more of a full body remedy ... in liquid form."  
  
"Knew I could count on you." They grinned at each other, turning in unison to greet the silent Stringfellow, who approached from the pilot's side. His limp was more pronounced than before, and he walked without giving the usual impression of tightly controlled power that had characterized him. He looked drained, a whiteness around his lips betraying the discomfort he was in.  
  
"Looks like we aren't the only ones who can use my full body remedy, Saint John, me bucko," Mike remarked, jabbing his friend in the ribs. To Stringfellow he asked amiably, "How ya doin', buddy?"  
  
The younger Hawke glanced at him once, no more than a flick of an eyelash, then pointedly dismissed both the question and the dangerous spark that lit Mike's light blue eyes at the snub. Despite his limp, he took his wobbling brother's arm, supporting him around the metal railings to one of the padded console chairs. "We'd better take care of that wound," he said quietly, unzipping the older man's flight suit.  
  
"No full body remedy?" Saint John teased, slipping his arms out of the gray sleeves. String just looked at him, and he sighed. "You know, little brother, sooner or later all that laughter you're saving up is going to bust your gut."  
  
"I see humor isn't a strong family characteristic," Mike remarked from the direction of Airwolf. "Think it could be genetic?"  
  
"If so, you're probably related to the Marx brothers," Saint John shot back, grinning up into Stringfellow's face. "Right?"  
  
A single spark lit the younger man's dark blue eyes then was gone. "I'll get the first--"  
  
"First Aid kit," Mike said from behind. He shoved the tin box at Stringfellow, then, using both hands, ripped Saint John's flannel work shirt open at the sleeve, turning the man's arm into the light. "You're right, it's not bad. You should probably have some stitches or you're going to have a nasty looking scar."  
  
Saint John waved a disinterested hand. "What's one more?" He caught his brother's sharp look and shut up, sitting quietly while the two younger men disinfected and rebound the wound, then accepted the aspirin, swallowing two with water from a thermos. When he was through tying a crude sling, String took back the bottle and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.  
  
"You should get some rest," he said. "Bullet wound shocks the body."  
  
"I'm a little cold," the older brother admitted, pressing his palm against his forehead, "but nothing serious. I'll be fine in a couple of hours."  
  
"So why push it, then?" Mike asked, helping himself to the aspirin. "We're probably looking at another hour before Jo gets here with some transportation. Use the time to relax. I'm going to take a look at the damage they did to Airwolf."  
  
Stringfellow straightened. "I'll give you a hand. I want to make sure that laser didn't do more than punch a hole in the windshield."  
  
"Don't forget the bullet through the fuel line," Saint John reminded them, sitting back and closing his eyes. "Probably knocked out a half-dozen circuits at the same time."  
  
Mike slapped him on the back. "We'll take care of it."  
  
Working quietly, the two began an initial diagnostic exam of the damaged gunship, unconsciously falling into a coordinated working rapport. Mike, never one to maintain a silence for long, chatted good-naturedly, seeming to pay no attention to the fact that very few of his friendly overtures were answered. He was actually surprised when, after a period of quiet that lasted nearly a minute, Stringfellow said hesitantly,  
  
"You and my brother work well together. You've gotten pretty close, haven't you?"  
  
Mike waved the screwdriver he was applying to an access panel. "We've shared a beer or two. Guy was really out of touch with the rest of the world when he came back. Computer illiterate, oldies music, bell bottom pants; he even thought the braless look was still in ... we wish. I took it upon myself to give him a little ... uh ... reeducation."  
  
Hawke didn't move for several seconds. "I'm glad he had someone to help him catch up. Fifteen years is a long time to be a prisoner."  
  
Mike glanced at him. "A man can catch up with the styles pretty fast. It takes awhile for the other garbage to work itself out."  
  
"I know," Stringfellow said more to himself than the other. "I was a prisoner of war for two months; I can imagine what it was like for fifteen years. I.... It was Saint John that got me out." Mike raised one brow at this new information, and Hawke swallowed, forcing the neutral mask back over his features, again tucking in the pain behind steel barriers. "I can see how your reeducation is going," he said in a lighter tone. "His sense of humor is getting worse.  
  
Mike stuck his tongue in his cheek. "Think he's starting to sound like me?" He grinned cherubically. "You're not jealous, are you? 'Fraid I might take your place with big brother?"  
  
Rather than returning the smile, Hawke turned his eyes full on the other; their gazes locked. "I'm glad you're friends," he said quietly. "Saint John can use someone more ... in touch around him right now."  
  
The surprising candor actually stopped the flippant Mike Rivers cold for several long seconds. His grin flickered, then returned with an effort. "If you'd come down off Pike's Peak once in awhile," he began, resuming his teasing tone, "you could do some catching up, too."  
  
Hawke lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug and looked away. "The mountain is my home."  
  
Rivers reached out, touching his arm with the casual straightforwardness that was part of his nature. "It's a cage," he returned seriously, "like the one Saint John was in. The only difference is that you built that one for yourself." Barriers slammed down over hard features, the blue eyes flashing their Keep Out! signs. Realizing he'd pushed that fierce privacy too far, Rivers shook his head and went back to the access panel, pulling it open and peering inside. "We're going to need a new windshield; no way we're going to be able to patch this one enough to maintain cabin pressure. Ditto with some new armor plating. Looks like this wiring can be saved, though."  
  
Hawke looked thoughtful. "I don't know how we're going to get the windshield without alerting anyone to the special order. Maybe Archangel can arrange something."  
  
Mike glanced at him, puzzled. "Why would he have to do that? Jason can put in an invoice and we'll pick up the parts in a couple of days." Receiving a sharp look, he shrugged. "We're kind of unofficial subcontractors these days. The Committee knows we have her safe and sound ... well, some of the Committee, anyway. We keep our mouths shut and let Jason handle the negotiations." He waved breezily. "Hey, she did what you wanted her to do -- she brought Saint John back. That means you can share the wealth a bit, you know."  
  
That won a moment's silence while Hawke glanced at Saint John dozing in the chair, then around him at Airwolf's lit panels, finally down at his hands. "I ... guess you're right. It's just been so long...."  
  
Ignoring the previous warning, Mike again touched the other man's arm though immediately withdrawing. "Hey, think of it as one burden you don't have to carry anymore," he said with easy sympathy. "I guess I know how I'd feel if it was my brother missing and no one did anything. But now that Hawke's back, you can afford to blow off a few of the ghosts and do a little cruising." He made a droll flying away gesture with both hands. "Take off, buddy-boy!" He stopped at the other's still-closed expression and finished carefully, "If you can?"  
  
Hawke's ducking down to closely examine the floor rudder pedals effectively closed that conversation. Mike rolled his eyes and returned to his own work, applying wire strippers and spare computer chips from a small box kept for such purposes. It wasn't ten minutes later, however, that he began to talk again, obviously content to discuss the day's doings without input from his companion.  
  
"... the look on his face!" he chortled, describing his ground encounter with the three mercenary pilots. "You'd've thought I punched him somewhere beside the gut! And once Mina got there, they weren't about to charge two guns." Hawke, head under the dash and legs dangling over the co-pilot's set, grunted something. "What?"  
  
"I said, it's too bad we couldn't get Mrs. Mejindas out safe," the other man dutifully repeated a little louder. "She sounds like quite a woman."  
  
Humor vanished from Mike's open face. "She didn't deserve to go down like that," he said sadly.  
  
Stringfellow emerged from under the control dash, twisting until he could catch a glimpse of the blond man. "I'm sorry. You liked her, didn't you."  
  
In answer, Rivers shrugged philosophically, maintaining his own carefully neutral facade. "It's not the first time someone I liked went down. Unlike most of them, though, Mina Mejindas didn't deserve what she got. I just wish I could have done something."  
  
Another move at near contortionist levels and Hawke's head appeared above the seat. "There wasn't anything you could have done," he began carefully. "It wasn't your fault."  
  
Mike met his gaze bluntly. "You don't have to worry about me, pal, I'm not going to be doing any wallowing over it. I know there wasn't anything I could have done; if there had been, I would have done it." He looked away, full lips drawn into a line. "I regret what happened, but I'm not guilty. The ones that were responsible for Mina's death have already paid."  
  
"Mejindas didn't pay," the other man pointed out grimly. "You said he got away."  
  
Rivers clenched his fists, then slowly and deliberately relaxed them, the calculated control of a trained warrior giving him a suddenly dangerous air. "So he did. We'll have to see about that, won't we."  
  
Finished with the laser-holed panel, he next turned to the ROM disk in the flight recorder; a touch of the button and the gleaming laser disk slid smoothly out of it's slot. "The nose cameras recorded the whole mission you know," he began, lifting it by the edges. "Including your flight in."  
  
"Airwolf records everything," Hawke returned nonchalantly, gathering up an assortment of tools scattered on the metal floor. "We didn't know that until a few months ago."  
  
Rivers stared at the glittering disk as though mesmerized for a long moment. "I replayed it on the monitor on the way back. I was curious to see how you managed to penetrate a Haversham defense screen."  
  
"Not easily," the other man breathed fervently, still shaken.  
  
Mike chuckled. "So I saw. I've flown a lot of combat -- against MiGS, missiles, you name it -- but I've never seen such a dense perimeter ring of anti-aircraft weaponry. Even my last mission into Iraq was a piece of cake compared to that."  
  
Hawke waved it aside. "If Locke was right about that being a control center for future missile launches, then Mejindas had a lot to hide."  
  
"He almost got away with it, too." Mike hesitated, then brought his head up, scooting around the co-pilot's seat until he could see the other man; he waited until Hawke had looked up at him, a question in his eyes, before speaking. "That trick you did with the missiles.... I'm good, I know that -- the best the Air Force has. But I don't know for a fact that I could have done it -- I honestly don't think I would have made it through a Haversham screen. If I couldn't, I doubt Saint John could have." He smiled then, for once completely without ego, and held out his hand. "I guess I was wrong about your flying. You may have the Right Stuff, after all."  
  
Much to the surprise of them both, Hawke blushed hotly, his eyes glowing from both compliment and pride of accomplishment. He accepted the offered handclasp and ducked his head. "Thanks. Whatever that is."  
  
Mike laughed. "You don't do many movies, do you. 'S'okay, not many single chicks hang out there anyway. Now I know this little club right outside Van Nuys...."  
  
But his audience wasn't listening any more. Hawke sat stock still, head tilted upward. "Jo is coming."  
  
Mike, too, cocked his head, face screwed up for several seconds, then he nodded. "I hear it. Let's get this stuff stowed, then we can write up a shopping list for Jason." He patted the nearest console lovingly. "We'll get this Lady back in shape in no time flat."  
  
Sure enough, the elderly Sikorsky Jo was again flying landed in the outer cavern less than five minutes later. That accomplished, there was a chorus of exuberant voices as three people disembarked and made their way through the passage to the central chamber, Jo Santini, Jason Locke and Michael [Archangel] Coldsmith-Briggs III.  
  
Mike Rivers called a greeting, nudging a yawning Saint John awake. "C'mon, Hawke, the gang's all here and it sounds like they're having quite a party!"  
  
"A loud party," the big blond groused with a half smile. The two crossed to the cave entrance, waiting with Stringfellow Hawke for the trio to arrive. "You guys sure took your time about getting here!"  
  
"As if you could coax any more speed out of that relic I was stuck with?" the woman charged, dancing a little ahead of her companions. "It's sure good to see you three still kicking."  
  
"It's good to see us three any way you can get us," Mike returned cheerfully. He greeted Locke with a nod. "Hey, Jason, next time try and get me a flying job, okay? Or give me time to pick up some allergy medicine before I hit the wide open spaces.  
  
"Let's keep you in the cockpit," the black man returned amiably. "At least then I know where you are." He slapped the grinning Rivers on the back then glanced at Saint John's sling. "How's the wing?"  
  
Saint John held his arm a little closer to his chest though still managing an awkward, one-shouldered shrug. "I've had worse. Buttoning my shirts is going to be my biggest problem for awhile." He smiled at Jo but focussed his attention on the medium-height, platinum haired man, whom Jason was leading with a hand under his arm. "I take it this is Archangel?"  
  
"Yes, this is Archangel," Michael snapped, two paces to Locke's rear. "Would anybody mind if I unmasked now?"  
  
Jo stood on tip-toes and untied the knot, and Michael whipped off the cloth covering his eyes. He finger combed back his unbound bangs while darting a glance at the equipment laden cave. "This place looks like Frankenstein's laboratory," he muttered, one blue eye brightening at the sight of the black helicopter on her lighted pad. "Thank goodness Airwolf is still in one piece.  
  
"Glad you approve, Dad," Mike quipped, earning a scowl from Jason.  
  
Archangel too shot him a disapproving look but said nothing for at that moment he noticed the quietly waiting Stringfellow Hawke. He broke into a broad smile and strode forward, pretending to examine the younger man minutely. "Hawke! I should have known better than to believe any reports about your death! You've got more lives than a black cat."  
  
"You're lookin' pretty good for a corpse, too, Michael," Hawke drawled, one of his infrequent grins lighting his face.  
  
Archangel extended a hand that was immediately accepted, but rather than shaking it he used the grip to pull the younger man toward him, wrapping him in a hard, full bearhug. "Good to see you again, Stringfellow," he said warmly. He held the embrace even when the younger Hawke stiffened, a look of such utter astonishment on his face that both Locke and Rivers broke out in loud guffaws, and Jo giggled. Then Stringfellow was pounding him on the back in return, and Archangel pulled away though still holding him by the upper arms. "You're looking well," he said more seriously. "Better than I expected."  
  
"You're looking shaggy," the Stringfellow replied, blue eyes dancing with barely suppressed glee. "Love the hair. And the beard...." He shook his head. "It's you."  
  
The blond agent gave the young man a playful shake before releasing him altogether. "Rascal," he teased affectionately. He ran a hand through his platinum locks, now secured at his nape with a rubber band. He next scratched the straggly beard and grimaced. "I have seen more stylish days," he admitted wryly. "I hope somebody thought to store my clothes properly. I'd hate to have to face Zeus under this kind of tactical disadvantage."  
  
"Clothes make the man, eh?" the other returned, still smiling.  
  
"As if you can talk!" Michael again scanned his friend. "I can't leave you alone for a minute can I? A short transfer to Hong Kong and you get yourself in trouble again."  
  
"I wasn't the one that got myself kidnapped by the Mexicans," Stringfellow retorted, shifting his weight to his good leg.  
  
"He's got a point," Saint John told Mike as an aside.  
  
The quip got Michael's attention, however, and he turned from Stringfellow to face the older brother directly. "You must be Saint John Hawke," he said, extending his hand. He stopped, noticing the bloody right sleeve, and contented himself with a smile instead. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last. I've heard about you a great deal more than I ever wanted to. No offense intended, of course."  
  
Saint John tipped his head amiably, distinctly unself-conscious about the subject. "Everyone's been saying the same thing lately."  
  
Archangel chuckled. "Believe me when I say I am very glad you're back. If I'd've had to deal much more with your brother on his quest ..." He jerked his thumb at the happy looking younger man, Stringfellow's smile widening his own. "... I would have been tempted to go right back to that nice, safe dungeon in Mexico."  
  
Saint John glanced at his brother, gray eyes meeting dark blue, and warmth flashed between them. "Knowing String as I do, I wouldn't've blamed you."  
  
As usual the younger Hawke refused to rise to the bait. Michael slapped him on the back again and returned his scrutiny to his surroundings. His attention fastened greedily on the shining helicopter framed in the center, drinking it in with old appreciation. Then he skimmed the computers, communications and maintenance equipment filling the rest of the available space, experienced gaze weighing, gauging and analyzing in a glance.  
  
"I take it you've never been here before, Archangel?" Jason asked, appropriating the ROM disk from Mike and crossing to one of the terminals.  
  
"It's certainly more rustic than I expected," Michael returned, single eye bright with interest, "despite all the new Firm-owned hardware. I'd say Miss Santini did a good installation job, wouldn't you, Stringfellow?" Ignoring Hawke's irritated grunt at the mention, he began to wander, starting with Airwolf's landing pad. He circled the craft once, reaching out to touch the sleek black surface with covetous fingers. "She's just as beautiful as the day Moffett designed her. And this is somehow a fitting setting; she looks like a gemstone." He left Airwolf for the computer consoles, neck craned to peer up the stone chimney at the sky. "I always wondered what the inside of this place looked like."  
  
"Inside?" Stringfellow picked that up immediately. Looking alarmed, he following the Department of National Security's Deputy Director at a slower hobble. "What do you mean, inside? Are you telling me you knew where this place was all the time?"  
  
"It would have been in line with the rumors I heard," Jason interjected, watching the two with professional interest. "Gossip around the water cooler said you could have picked up Airwolf any time you wanted to."  
  
Archangel smoothed a wrinkle in his borrowed Army fatigues, looking more than a touch uncomfortable. "Not all the time," he began, clearing his throat. "And not officially," he added, glancing at Jason sternly. "Let's just say I had my ... uh ... suspicions. I simply neglected to pursue them to the fullest degree."  
  
"Blindfold wasn't really necessary, was it," Saint John put in drolly, again lowering himself into a chair. "Is there any more of that aspirin left?"  
  
Jo, helping herself to some water from the thermos, was at his side immediately, a worried frown bisecting her blonde brows. "You should be in a hospital," she scolded, placing a small hand on his forehead. "You've got a fever."  
  
"Used to be a chill." Saint John brushed her aside gently. "It's a very mild one and my arm is taken care of. There isn't anything a hospital can do for me that a good night's sleep can't."  
  
"Men," she huffed, placing hands on her hips. "I suppose Mike isn't going to be checked for a concussion, either? And you, String, how's your ankle?"  
  
"I'm fine," Hawke and Rivers responded in tandem.  
  
Jo sighed and gave up. "Michael," she said, next turning to the older blond. "There's something I always wondered about. Why did you provide all this equipment? I had only discovered Airwolf two days earlier; how could you have known that?"  
  
"I've been wondering the same thing," Jason interjected, foregoing his computer work to look up. "Not that we were looking a gift horse in the mouth, but...."  
  
"Perhaps you should have," Archangel returned wryly, brushing past Stringfellow to Locke's console. "It keeps you alive longer." Jason looked offended and Michael chuckled. "Why? Because I was furious, that's why. Zeus pulls some high-handed stunt like sending me to Hong Kong -- legitimate assignment, I might add -- then moves you in with orders to get Airwolf at all costs?" He shook his head. "Did he think I was so stupid as to not see through his ploy?"  
  
"Maybe he just expected you to follow orders," Locke said seriously.  
  
That won a full throated laugh. "He certainly knows me better than that! Besides, I figured Hawke -- junior, that is...."  
  
Stringfellow looked mildly horrified. "You're not going to call me that all the time, are you? Just because Saint John's back...."  
  
"Older and wiser," the older brother returned smugly, putting his feet up on the console and clasping one hand behind his neck.  
  
"Besides," Archangel started again, glaring the two into silence, "I figured that Hawke was going to need an edge when the Firm moved in for the kill ... metaphorically speaking, of course. Without communications and computer access, he would be too dependant on Zeus' ... and Jason's good wishes."  
  
Ignoring the black agent's scowl, Mike leaned one hip on Jason's console and crossed his arms. "You've got a special frequency, scrambled comm unit feeding you info off our equipment, don't you," he stated matter-of-factly, patting the monitor. "Nice setup."  
  
If Jo, Jason and Saint John looked startled, Michael was even more so. "How did you know that?" the older man stuttered, gaping at the blond pilot.  
  
Mike grinned. "Knew that's what I'd do if I was going to be so generous with this equipment. Keeping your hand in, Archangel?"  
  
Michael recovered and smiled sheepishly. "Keeping an eye on my investment," he returned dryly. "Airwolf cost me quite a bit over the years; I wasn't about to give her to Zeus so easily as that."  
  
"Zeus isn't taking a direct hand in the project anymore," Jason said, securing his computer equipment and shutting it down. "Apollo is."  
  
Michael's smile turned into a sneer. "So Donald got his promotion, did he? How is the old hypocrite?"  
  
"Mr. Newman is doing fine," Jason returned with some hint of professional disapproval. "He's taken over all your files."  
  
Mike clunked the black agent's chair with the toe of his boot, his tone sardonicism personified. "And to keep them, he courageously didn't stage a rescue while you were in Mexico."  
  
"At least he didn't activate Zebra Squad," Jason volleyed, determined, it seemed, to defend his boss despite the fact he couldn't stand him and had said so on more than one occasion.  
  
Jo hiked up the sleeves of her flying jacket, using the movement to hide a shudder. "I found out what that Zebra Squad, is, and I can't believe you even have such a thing. We're Americans! We're supposed to be the good guys."  
  
"Ask Marella to explain it to you sometime," Michael returned dryly. "She has a much more convincing argument on the subject than I do, and I was the one who initiated the unit in the first place."  
  
Jo's eyes widened. "You were lucky they didn't come after you, then. I'm assuming you're considered a danger, too."  
  
Michael smiled at her, looking particularly unruffled by the possibility. "They tried ... once. They didn't succeed only because I had a friend pull me out in time." He winked at Stringfellow, who contrived to look modest. "I made sure it couldn't happen again."  
  
Jo turned away. "I don't think I want to hear about that part of it. Hey, String, how about springing for dinner in that mountain cabin of yours. Flying through artillery barrages makes me hungry."  
  
The younger Hawke brother draped his flight suit across a convenient communications unit, then tucked his t-shirt into the waistband of his jeans and reached for the brown sweater he'd discarded there the day before. "We'll have to see if Marella left us anything."  
  
Archangel turned to him, startled. "Marella? Of course! I should have sensed her fine hand in this. I assume they didn't trace her to you."  
  
"They might have traced her to my cabin," Hawke said, next helping his brother step out of the uniform he still half wore. "We left her there with Tet. No surveillance dust, no transmitters, nothing."  
  
Archangel sighed his relief. "Good. If I work quickly enough I might -- I say, might -- be able to salvage her career. Going against orders the first time this happened might have been forgiven; this time...." He shook his head. "She and I are going to have to do a fast soft shoe on this one."  
  
"If anyone can," Stringfellow muttered, still with that strange impish look. "Uh ... if you don't mind, I'd still feel better if you were blindfolded going out. Old habits kind of die pretty hard."  
  
***  
  
With seven people congregated within its walls, even the elegantly furnished log cabin seemed a bit crowded. The company, however, was pleasantly jocular, the mood celebratory. Marella had been at the dock to greet the returning heroes, welcoming Michael back with a hearty embrace and even heartier kiss, which, professional decorum aside, had been returned with gusto. In the spirit of the mood she'd even kissed Stringfellow on the cheek, allowed Mike to whirl her around in a little dance then hugged Michael again. Her gratitude went out to the entire team; she and Michael Coldsmith-Briggs had worked together many years, developing an abiding friendship even above normal camaraderie, and her pleasure at his return was genuine.  
  
With so many present, dinner was a confusing, happy hub-bub, all jostling elbows and bad jokes, while the strains of one of Mozart's piano concertos played off a CD. Contrary to Hawke's remark about Marella's voracity, there was plenty of food, frozen trout from the freezer and fresh vegetables filling the bill. Finally, stomach's filled and adrenalin fading, the group repaired to the living room area with drinks and the comfortable lethargy that comes with the end of a day's work well done.  
  
"... will go to prison," Michael was saying, swirling brandy around the bottom of his snifter. "Had Dr. Steiner retained his Israeli citizenship, he might have gotten off with being deported; as it is, I'm going to see that it's a long time before he sees daylight again."  
  
"It still won't be long enough," Marella muttered, seated on the stone hearth. She pointed to Saint John, comfortably sprawled in the chair opposite the couch, his wounded arm-plus-sling resting across his chest, then waved vaguely, encompassing the entire team. "When I think of all the trouble he caused...."  
  
The government agent code named Archangel slumped back into his corner of the sofa and stretched his stiff leg out straight. "He'll pay, Marella. I'll see to that." He scratched at his beard, grimacing when his fingers tangled in the long strands. "I wish I'd borrowed a razor back at the base. This thing is irritating."  
  
"I think it makes you look rakish," the black woman decided, lifting one brow drolly. "Very piratical."  
  
Jo, who'd volunteered herself and Mike Rivers to clear the table, called out from the surprisingly modern kitchenette, "I'm with Marella. Whatever they do to Steiner, it just doesn't seem enough. But at least he won't be in any position to do something like this again. Oh, you do look a little rakish with the beard, Michael."  
  
Mike Rivers handed her some plastic wrap from a cupboard, tearing off a piece himself and using it to cover some leftover salad. "Steiner won't be able to come back at us," he said grimly, uncharacteristically ignoring the opening for a joke. "Mejindas will."  
  
Lamplight glittered off good crystal as Jason, occupying the opposite end of the sofa, waved his own glass in agreement. "He's right, Michael. I would have felt a lot better knowing Mejindas didn't get away with what he tried to do -- and is never in a position to do it again."  
  
That won a philosophical shrug from the older man. "He's still being protected by the Mexican government. Even though reports of Airwolf's presence are already reaching the White House ..."  
  
"You heard from them?" Jason asked, surprised.  
  
"President's having a fit, eh?" Saint John Hawke interjected, unperturbed by the possibility.  
  
Michael smiled humorlessly. "After twenty years in the business, I don't have to hear from anyone to know how things work. Mexico will file a formal protest, the President will deny knowing anything about any black helicopter attack, someone will mention terrorists and that will be the end of it."  
  
"Until Mejindas decides to relocate and try again," Rivers grumbled, closing the refrigerator door and accepting the towel Jo proffered. "And all the while, Mina is still dead." He wiped his hands, then tossed the towel on the counter and followed the blonde into the living room. "That part stinks."  
  
"Yes, it does." Jason fixed him with a sympathetic look. "I'm truly sorry about Mina Mejindas. After all that time undercover, it would have been nice to be able to bring her home."  
  
"She was quite an agent," Marella said, sipping thoughtfully at her brandy.  
  
"She was quite a woman," Rivers shot back, eyes flashing. "Don't ever forget that." He stopped at the startled looks from his companions, and turned to stare into the small fire that had been lit more for the sake of ambiance than to offset the oncoming evening. "I won't."  
  
The stereo clicked off, Mozart's work dying away and leaving an odd vacuum that gave the conversation pause. It was replaced a moment later by the strains of a cello coming from outside. The notes were pure and sweet and slightly sad, and just over them the cry of a hunting eagle was audible in the distance.  
  
"That's beautiful," Jo said, cocking her head in a listening attitude. "I'd forgotten how well he played. The guitar, too. Well, now. I still remember when he sounded like he was strangling cats."  
  
Michael rubbed at his sore knee, took another sip of his brandy and stretched with almost decadent delight. "I must admit I've always enjoyed his impromptu concerts. There's a grand feeling to this place that suits the music. I do wish he'd play something cheerful occasionally, though. Stringfellow can be an incredibly depressing young man when he sets his mind to it."  
  
Mike Rivers, once more composed, turned from the fire and leaned against the mantle. "So, what about the musician's big brother?" he asked, the irrepressible imp rising in his eyes. "Do you serenade the wildlife too, or are we talking tin ear, here?"  
  
Saint John buffed his nails on the front of his borrowed, blue flannel shirt, blue-gray eyes twinkling. "String got the musical talent in the family; I ended up with all the looks."  
  
"And your fair share of the ego," Jo teased, leaning forward to slap him playfully on the leg. "Not that there's much to choose between the two of you on that front."  
  
Locke twisted until he could peer at the exit over his right shoulder. "I didn't even notice he'd disappeared. Hawke moves pretty quietly when he wants to." His mustache twitched humorously. "I presume it's not the company?"  
  
"Too many people around." Saint John cautiously probed his injured arm then winced and settled for clasping it sling and all tighter against his chest. "String never did feel comfortable in a crowd. I never did either until recently."  
  
"Nice to have a little security around, eh?" Jason asked understandingly, having lived through his own fair share of Viet Nam.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Mike left the mantle for the breakfast bar, where a crystal decanter of brandy waited. He chose one of the glittering snifters aligned on the side and poured himself a generous dollop. "I almost feel bad driving a man out of his own house," he said, lifting the amber fluid to eye level then taking a sniff. "Mmmmm. Of course, 'almost' only counts in--"  
  
Michael snorted, looking far from uncomfortable in his nook. "It's a little difficult to drive Hawke out of anywhere he doesn't want to go." He grinned at Saint John. "Trust me. I've tried hard enough in the past."  
  
"Boy always was stubborn," the older Hawke remarked with agreeable humor. "I was the cooperative one."  
  
Jo lowered herself onto the couch next to Michael and sniggered. "That's not what Uncle Dom used to say. He said between the two of you and a mule, the mule was a real diplomat."  
  
"And now we have two mules to deal with," Michael said, offering the smiling Jason Locke a sympathetic look. "Perhaps I'll reconfirm my transfer to Hong Kong after all."  
  
"Two pains in the butt," Jason mourned, dark eyes glinting mischievously, "and Rivers? Maybe I can go to Hong Kong with you?"  
  
This elicited general laughter, then Saint John stood, having to struggle to escape the overstuffed chair. "I'll be back," he offered with mock affront. "I think I need a little air." He strode for the front door and stepped outside, pausing to stare at the breathtaking vista of dusk on the high mountain lake. At six o'clock during this time of year, the sun was just kissing the farthest peak, the slanted rays dying the waters ruby. High above, the eagle rose and fell on invisible thermals, her raucous cry echoing once before dying away.  
  
Against this magnificence a lonely figure in white sweater and jeans sat on the stump of the three hundred year old oak that had once sheltered the cabin, a gentle breeze blowing back his longish brown hair. The cello was held against his body, the bow moving delicately across the strings. Saint John regarded the figure a long moment, a fond smile softening the lines around his mouth, then he left the porch and made his way down the little path that led to the water.  
  
"I see you've been practicing," he said by way of greeting, sitting next to his brother on the makeshift bench. "You're actually starting to coax something besides hen squawks out of that thing."  
  
Stringfellow never looked at him; his gaze remained fixed on the soaring eagle, but tiny creases appeared around his eyes, a spark of amusement peeking through. "From you I guess I'd better take that as a compliment."  
  
"From me, that is a compliment." Saint John followed his line of sight, grinning when the eagle suddenly dipped into the water and rose bearing a wiggling body in its talons; the large trout struggled gamely for a moment before slipping free and returning to the lake with a splash. "You played the guitar quite a bit in 'Nam but I haven't heard you play a cello in years."  
  
"Wouldn't fit in my backpack," his brother returned dryly.  
  
Saint John snorted. "Last time I saw you with one of those, you were still in high school. Horsehair bow or not, I thought you were gonna saw that thing in half."  
  
"You kept hoping I would," the younger man retorted. He trailed off, maintaining his silence through a difficult piece, eyes unfocussing after the passage. "Dom didn't like to listen much. He kept asking me why I didn't learn any jazz."  
  
"Did you?"  
  
Stringfellow broke off the classical number, his fingers moving over the strings in a base walk that reeked of New Orleans. "Not hard, just different. It sounds better under a piano melody." He resumed the concert, still carrying that far-away look in his eyes. "How's your arm?"  
  
Reminded, Saint John rubbed it gently through the sling. "No problem. How's your ankle?"  
  
"Fine."  
  
Conversation lagged for several minutes, long enough for the eagle to circle twice and the ruby waters to become purple. Finally, Saint John leaned forward, resting one elbow on his knee and looking up into his brother's dreamy face. "String?"  
  
"Hmmmm?"  
  
"What are you going to do now?"  
  
Stringfellow gave him a blink and a brief glance. "Do about what?"  
  
"The rest of your life."  
  
That won him a full stare. "Airwolf already has a full flight crew," he said curtly, unconsciously changing the music from Mendelson to Tchaikovsky in reflection of his mood.  
  
Saint John laughed shortly, filling his lungs then emptying them in a long, slow breath. "After today, Jason might question that," he joshed. "But what I meant," he began again, "is, that now that you're flying again, are you going to come back to Santini Air? We've been talking about starting up with the movie stunts like you and Dom used to do. We could tap your contacts if you're going to be doing any of the flying."  
  
Stringfellow shrugged. "You can use my name to tap any contacts you want; you don't need me to be there."  
  
"Maybe not," the older brother remarked gently, "but that doesn't mean I don't want you there."  
  
The music faltered before continuing, slower, once again sad, and the blue eyes refocussed on the distant horizon. "It wouldn't be the same without Dom."  
  
Saint John touched the other's shoulder, and his expression, usually so closed, was a mixture of compassion and a curious wistfulness born from the need in his own abused soul. "No, it wouldn't," he admitted soberly. "But different doesn't necessarily mean bad. And I'll be there." He squeezed the lean shoulder under his hand. "You can't sit up here forever, String."  
  
"So everyone keeps telling me," Stringfellow returned with wry amusement. Again that brief flash of amusement faded. "It wasn't like that, you know -- not completely. I didn't spend all my time up here."  
  
"No?" the elder man prodded with a raised eyebrow.  
  
The negative dislodged a strand of light brown hair; it fell down over Stringfellow's forehead into his eyes. He flipped it back self- consciously, his words halting, unwilling. "Dom ... Dom wouldn't let me. Sometimes. But I kept coming back. This place has always been my home."  
  
Saint John Hawke turned his head slowly, seeming to absorb every detail of his surroundings in a single sweep. "I always loved it up here. But since I got back.... Well, being around people -- being in the thick of everything -- that's when I'm most comfortable. Being alive again. It helps the worst of it. Keeps me from having to think too hard, I guess."  
  
The younger man bit his lip. "That's what Dom used to say, too. I didn't want to think but.... I didn't want to deal with ... what was out there, either. And ... after we got Airwolf there was so much we had to do ... people who needed us." He cast his brother a glance. "Most of it -- most of the people -- I didn't want. But there were a few good ones. A few."  
  
Saint John nodded slowly, eyes downcast in remembrance. "There were a few for me, too. Friends I miss, men and women who helped each other through the rough times." He stopped, swallowing hard. "I wish I knew what happened to Kim Nyon. And Jeff Cannon; he was captured the same time I was. And Maridel. She was...."  
  
"Close to you?" Stringfellow asked when he trailed off.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Anything further they would have said was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and closing, then uneven footfalls making their way down the path toward the wide stump. "I can see the attraction of the great outdoors today," Michael Coldsmith-Briggs said, coming to a stop only feet from where the brothers sat. "This is a superb panorama, particularly at sunset."  
  
"You've seen it before," the younger Hawke pointed out, finishing a chord and lifting his bow.  
  
Michael grinned, white teeth showing through his uneven beard. "Freedom makes everything more brand new," he returned, leaning on the silver headed walking stick he'd borrowed from its corner. "If anyone, you two should know that."  
  
"I do," Saint John answered more to himself, and his gray eyes were alight. He squeezed Stringfellow's shoulder again then released him to cradle his injured arm closer. "Believe me, that I do know."  
  
The government agent hesitated, fingers tight on the top of the walking stick. "I wanted to thank you both for coming after me today. I knew the Firm had cut me off and...."  
  
Stringfellow Hawke fixed him with a grim look. "You work in a sewer, Michael."  
  
Archangel tipped his head. "Don't mince words, Hawke. Tell me what you really think." He adjusted his partially darkened glasses then turned slightly until he could see the colorfully hued lake. "Shades of gray, Stringfellow," he said with some abstraction. "Being in the business requires that you consider black and white as nothing more than a luxury. You have to accept those shades of gray even when they roll over on you." He jabbed the tip of the cane at the brown-haired pilot. "You're naive to believe good will always triumph. Oh, sometimes it does, but rarely in the same form it enters the battle. You understand that, I think," he said to Saint John, their eyes meeting and locking. Saint John remained silent, suddenly distant, and Michael returned his gaze to the sharp blue eyes regarding him warily. "Someday even you may come to see that, Stringfellow." He hesitated, dropping the tip of the stick back to the ground. "But for both our sakes, I hope you never do. Maintain whatever shreds of that blissful innocence you can."  
  
The bow sawed a few more notes, discordant and unconnected. "Is that what you call it?" the younger Hawke asked in a low voice, expression more weary than challenging. "Not stupidity?"  
  
Michael took a step nearer, resting his hand on Hawke's shoulder in the exact same spot Saint John had only moments earlier. "No, Stringfellow," he said gently. "Never stupidity."  
  
He stepped back looking uncomfortable, and it was Saint John who broke the sudden tension by slapping his brother on the leg. "String and I were just talking about the future. I'm trying to convince him to come back to Santini Air so we can start doing some of those movie stunts we've heard so much about."  
  
"Oh, yes! Do, String!" There was a clatter from the porch then Jo started toward them, large eyes growing even wider when they lighted on the lake. "That's so pretty!"  
  
"Beautiful," Locke agreed, as he and the rest of the group followed at a slower pace. They trooped down to where the three men waited, each expressing their own delight. Jason shivered and fastened the top button of his work shirt, fingers unconsciously reaching for the tie that wasn't there. He sighed and crossed his arms instead. "What about it, Mr. Hawke? We do have a good team flying Airwolf, but there's always room for her original pilot."  
  
"Moffett was her original pilot," Stringfellow replied, glancing at the circle of people with suppressed discomfort. "I was only a test pilot."  
  
Marella assumed a stance beside Coldsmith-Briggs, her posture bespeaking her happiness to have him back. "After two years of dangerous missions, I'd hardly call you only a test pilot ... any more."  
  
"Only a test pilot?" Jo parroted, sneering at Saint John. "Who got all the ego again?"  
  
He gawked in manifest disbelief. "You're calling my brother humble?"  
  
That elicited a snicker from Marella and an unlady-like snort from Jo. "How gullible do I look?" the blonde retorted, raising a small hand. "Say it and I cream you right there."  
  
In unison they both turned to look at the impassive Stringfellow, laughing lightly. "Don't worry about it, String," Saint John chuckled. "We'll save the personality dissection for later."  
  
"Better him that me," Mike joked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I've been on the receiving end all evening." He scanned the skies, keen eyes flicking from horizon to apex and back. "Thought I heard that big turkey out here. Like to see that thing on a plate with some stuffing."  
  
"The eagle?" String asked, gesturing vaguely across the lake. "She flies wherever she wants to. She's free."  
  
"Only you would look at a bald eagle and think Thanksgiving, Mike," Jo scolded, slipping her arm through his. "So, what about it, String? Coming to work with us?"  
  
"Jason, Michael and I were discussing three upcoming Airwolf missions that would be right up your alley," Marella added, drawing pained looks from the assembled pilots. She gulped sheepishly. "Uh, maybe I ought to save the details for later."  
  
"Much later," Mike growled unhappily, giving Jo a friendly squeeze.  
  
The younger Hawke cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I...."  
  
"If it's any inducement," Jason said in tones of one making an unrefusable offer, "you can even draw a paycheck. Reservist plus combat pay, standard rates when you're on stand-by."  
  
Stringfellow lifted one shoulder unconcernedly. "I don't need money."  
  
Rivers rolled his eyes. "You really have been up here too long. Okay, so how about the adventure? Fame? Babes?" He broke off when Jo jabbed him in the side. "Babe?" he amended quickly.  
  
Stringfellow Hawke ignored him. He glanced at Saint John, on his left, and Michael directly to the fore. "If you ever need me," he said quietly, "I'll come."  
  
Archangel slapped his thigh. "Fair enough! I'm going to hold you to that, Hawke."  
  
"Hold him to it tomorrow," Saint John admonished, resting his elbow on his brother's shoulder with easy familiarity. "Tonight let's just enjoy the sunset."  
  
"In freedom," Michael added, taking a deep breath.  
  
Stringfellow Hawke gripped his brother's hand, looking contented and utterly at peace for the first time. "In freedom."  
  
Overhead, the eagle circled one last time and headed for home.  
  
***  
  
finis  
  
*** 


End file.
